The leadership knows that you cannot solve the issues of China’s future with the means of the past. The demographic consequences of the one-child policy, the build-up of the welfare state.
AI WEIWEILiberty is about our rights to question everything.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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The relationship between the Chinese government and me is like a Cold War.
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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.
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Of course, there [in China] has to be chaos. It has to be crazy, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong about it except this government, which is really incapable of doing anything meaningful.
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I think my stance and my way of life is my most important art.
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To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It’s a very complicated process to do large projects.
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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.
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So for too long Americans take liberty as granted. We think we are in the safe hand, the democracy and the liberty, which is not true. And it can be even getting much worse than today.
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The purpose of art is the fight for freedom.
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Destroy or build. Crazy or noncrazy. I’m not nostalgic about the old city. I don’t enjoy it that much.
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To the media, I have become a symbolic figure, critical of China. According to the government, I am a dangerous threat.
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In this kind of dictatorship, in this kind of totalitarian society, it is easy to make deals that you cannot make in a democratic society.
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Say what you say plainly, and then take responsibility for it.
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It’s like the mountains, the ocean and the rivers. It has its own geological forms. Societies cannot be flat. But during change, human rights, human dignity and free speech have to be protected. Otherwise, we’ll be going backward.
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Even though everybody who looked at me would call me a Chinese artist, that’s the 1980s. New York in the ’80s was not so interesting.
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We 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.
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China restricts the society’s freedom of speech. The Communist Party imposes these limits because it lacks confidence towards the future and has no ideals.
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Selling high or low doesn’t mean anything. It has to do purely with the market.
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I think art is a very important weapon to achieve human freedom
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In China, we don’t have any contemporary art museums. Until a few years ago, we didn’t even have a gallery.
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It is to wonder about the world, to understand the nature of people and, most importantly, to be shared with another, old or young, known or unknown.
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You need a purpose to express yourself, but that expression is its own purpose.
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As a total activity – I practice curating, art, architecture, writing, and publishing all together. I still act as a living creature.
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If there is no free speech, every single life has lived in vain
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A state like China looks so powerful, but they are so scared of the Internet, so the Internet is more powerful than them.
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I loved New York — every inch of it. It was a little bit scary at that time, but still, the excitement was so strong — visually and intellectually. It was like a monster.
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For artists and intellectuals today, what is most needed is to be clear about social responsibility, because that is what most people automatically give up. Just to protect yourself as an individual is very political.
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