Everyone wants an iPhone, but it would be impossible to design an iPhone in China because it’s not a product; it’s an understanding of human nature.
AI WEIWEIOtherwise, I think the building can be bigger, larger, and the city can be much more crazy. The problem is the government structure is so deadly stupid, not really solving problems but creating a lot of problems itself every day.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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Maybe being powerful means to be fragile.
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Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. Simply put, aside from using one’s imagination – perhaps more importantly – creativity is the power to act.
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You have so many museums in the West, and so many shows, you need somebody to show the work, otherwise it’s empty.
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I have people working together, doing different things: architecture, art installation, photography, publishing, and curatorial works and design.
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The practice of photography is no longer a means for recording reality. Instead, it has become reality itself
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The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.
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It’s not really an ideology, but a method of control. But China’s problems are not just China’s problems – they’re human problems. Humanity has always worked better when you see it as one.
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I don’t think my father had a direct influence on me, but I do think, more or less, I was influenced by his independent individualism.
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Your own acts tell the world who you are and what kind of society you think it should be.
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People have a tendency to become elite rather than to care about the general conditions of the society, which makes me sick. It’s an unbearable condition.
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The American experience influenced my understanding of individuality, basic human rights, freedom of expression and the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
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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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For those actors and directors who produce films which are always about the old kingdom or about heroes.
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If there’s the right condition, I always want to express the concept or ideas in a very independent way.
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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.
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Nothing is clear-cut. Perhaps I’ll find my way – or get totally lost.
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This is a very general understanding of art in China, that being an artist can make you money and turn you into a star.
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…photographs are facts, but not necessarily true… The present always surpasses the past, and the future will not care about today.
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If civil society has nobody who protects the law, then what kind of society is that?
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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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The relationship between the Chinese government and me is like a Cold War.
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Dictatorship is a story about death of others who turn out to be you coincidently.
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Liberty is about our rights to question everything.
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Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
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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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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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