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.
AI WEIWEIIf there is no freedom of expression, then the beauty of life is lost. Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it’s a human need.
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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Nationality started as something natural, but we should not be restrained by the old politics that make up these clear lines. It should have its own way of evolving. In some places, it will evolve slower and in others, faster.
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Creativity is the power to act.
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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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Whenever there is injustice, there is tension. But in China it is very hard to release your anger unless you burn yourself or you jump from a bridge. In a society where there is no freedom of the press, it is difficult for victims to be noticed.
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I deal with students every day – from China, Germany, the United States, Hong Kong and Taiwan. And I’ve noticed that the Chinese students are the least trained in having a sense of aesthetics.
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Politics is like air and water. And you know if there is bad politics. Everyone is polluted. Everyone is unhealthy. See the people walking on the street: how they act.
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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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I don’t care if this is a great cultural event or a national symbol. It has nothing to do with me. It deals with the city.
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I think art certainly is the vehicle for us to develop any new ideas, to be creative, to extend our imagination, to change the current conditions.
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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.
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Creativity is part of human nature. It can only be untaught.
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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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In the end, I think, the state’s rigidity is a function of its own insecurity, its indecisiveness.
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I have always stated I designed the stadium as a toilet seat.
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