For those actors and directors who produce films which are always about the old kingdom or about heroes.
AI WEIWEII have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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I’m totally independent. I don’t bear any responsibility to any system.
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It’s the place they take you before they give you over to the judicial system. You stay there for a year or two and they make you really suffer to confess everything.
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A clear understanding of such differences will help the rest of the world understand China and all that is happening to the nation.
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The IT people who have made such an effort to know and understand computer technology. They are frustrated that you cannot use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in China. They are the first to recognize that the situation is terrible.
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Nowadays, China is experiencing the detrimental effects of such decisions. Its citizens have no creativity.
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Man has a tendency to try to give clear reasons to be rational, but often you can see how all those reasons are not convincing and turn out to be a big nonsense.
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You start to see the society, how it functions, how it works. Then you have a lot of criticism about how it works.
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Chinese government is very clearly losing power in every aspect, but trying to fix up all the problems or potential problems.
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They lack any ability to sense what is beautiful or what is proper. They can be learned and skillful, but they lack the ability to make their own free judgment. It is really sad to see young adults of 20, 25 years who were never taught to make their own decisions.
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Mass production is nothing new. Weren’t cathedrals built through mass production? The pyramids?
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The intention to separate art from politics is itself a very political intention.
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Creativity is part of human nature. It can only be untaught.
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Being an artist is more of a mindset, a way of seeing things; it is no longer so much about producing something.
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The [China] government has improved in the last years. Of course, the structure is still the same; there’s still a one-party system and strong censorship.
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Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don’t think art is elite or mysterious. I don’t think anybody can separate art from politics.
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Life is never guaranteed to be safe, so we better use it while we are still in good condition.
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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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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.
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Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it.
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Any politician who respects China’s government should tell it openly what is in his heart. It is disrespectful to keep quiet about such issues – both vis-a-vis the government and the people concerned.
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By participating in the society we live in, we understand our conditions and the way we relate to the world.
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Imagine one day, the hateful world around you collapses. And it is your attitude, words and actions that put an end to it. Will you be excited?
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For years, I refused to go to any openings, not even my own.
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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.
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Dictatorship is a story about death of others who turn out to be you coincidently.
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The whole attitude of society has become much more open and realistic. They realize that the only way to make a more democratic and free society is to let different opinions come out.
AI WEIWEI