The deadly weapon against totalitarian society is openness – doing everything very openly on the Internet, letting people know every detail, any little development. Once it is out there, everybody can make their own judgement.
When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That’s dangerous for human development.
Somehow, we [ Tan Dun and director Chen Kaige] were all privileged at the time; we could be outside of China. But at the moment, we had no sense of what the future was going to be like.
In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want — not only you, your whole family and all people like you.
How to become a really modern society when today we are so – as a human being, we feel so powerful. We have high technology and a superb way of controlling our life. And at the same time, in many ways we are so primitive.
But personally, I don’t think my work and my understanding of art is so much related to being Chinese, but the character of that. Maybe it’s beyond my own consciousness.
![Ai Weiwei Quote - [Being unique] gives so much privilege to people who can make it, rather than having some moral and aesthetic discussions.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/being-unique-gives-so-much-privilege-to-people-who-683x1024.jpg)
![Ai Weiwei Quote - I saw [Allen Ginsberg] more as an old man who liked poetry and who had a lot of physical and emotional problems. We liked our time together.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/i-saw-allen-ginsberg-more-as-an-old-man-who-liked--683x1024.jpg)
![Ai Weiwei Quote - Somehow, we [ Tan Dun and director Chen Kaige] were all privileged at the time; we could be outside of China. But at the moment, we had no sense of what the future was going to be like.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/somehow-we-tan-dun-and-director-chen-kaige-were-al-683x1024.jpg)
![Ai Weiwei Quote - [Museums] all belongs to the cultural department, which is the biggest cultural department in the world.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/museums-all-belongs-to-the-cultural-department-whi-683x1024.jpg)
