China is at a different stage of development, human rights are violated here much more often. And still, we see improvements even here.
AI WEIWEIWe have to give our opinion, we have to say something, or we are a part of it. As an artist I am forced to say something.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
-
-
When you have strict censorship of the internet, young students cannot receive a full education. Their view of the world is imbalanced. There can be no true discussion of the issues.
AI WEIWEI -
It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that. There are crises and emergencies all the time, we might not even be aware of some. But I am afraid we’ll have to wait and observe precisely what the government is up to.
AI WEIWEI -
The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay.
AI WEIWEI -
To give a price to an artwork, no matter how high or low, is always absurd. It’s not something that can be measured by money or by certain numbers.
AI WEIWEI -
To experience poetry is to see over and above reality. It is to discover that which is beyond the physical, to experience another life and another level of feeling.
AI WEIWEI -
For those actors and directors who produce films which are always about the old kingdom or about heroes.
AI WEIWEI -
To the media, I have become a symbolic figure, critical of China. According to the government, I am a dangerous threat.
AI WEIWEI -
I don’t personally feel any association with a kind of culture related to state, or culture related to power, which I think is always disgusting.
AI WEIWEI -
Everything is selected by the central government without good judgment or an understanding of culture to make it really safe. They will become nobody to maintain their power and be raised to the next higher level.
AI WEIWEI -
I call on people to be ‘obsessed citizens,’ forever questioning and asking for accountability. That’s the only chance we have today of a healthy and happy life.
AI WEIWEI -
I grew up in a desert, which has no kind of imagination.
AI WEIWEI -
It’s just a way you have to set up some kind of activities to follow your instincts or your curiosities.
AI WEIWEI -
I never really read Allen Ginsberg poetry, even though I have a book he gave me.
AI WEIWEI -
The motivation is really to say people can find the game of getting involved interesting and find the problem and really have the passion and the enthusiasm to solve it and move forward, but that’s all I know.
AI WEIWEI -
In the end, I think, the state’s rigidity is a function of its own insecurity, its indecisiveness.
AI WEIWEI -
Liberty is about the right to question everything.
AI WEIWEI -
My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall.
AI WEIWEI -
Now you have the equal opportunity to equip yourself through information and knowledge and express yourself as an independent mind.
AI WEIWEI -
I have always stated I designed the stadium as a toilet seat.
AI WEIWEI -
The intention to separate art from politics is itself a very political intention.
AI WEIWEI -
It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that.
AI WEIWEI -
Maybe being powerful means to be fragile.
AI WEIWEI -
[Cultural departments] don’t care about culture. Maybe they’re the furthest from the people who understand culture.
AI WEIWEI -
A nation like China has become one of the biggest production fields for exporting cheap labor, which also re-questions our history and past, re-questions human desire, and the human illusions of the past.
AI WEIWEI -
Creativity is the power to act.
AI WEIWEI -
I think it’s a responsibility for any artist to protect freedom of expression and to use any way to extend this power.
AI WEIWEI