I never had secure, belonging feelings with this society [in China].
AI WEIWEIIt’s really rubbish that some kind of “technical” learning means you will be a better person because you know this skill better.
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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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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I never regret anything.
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I don’t think [price] reflects if the work is good or bad.A good artist shouldn’t be nervous about that.
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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.
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Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.
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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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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.
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My angst and my insecurity reflect the state’s angst and insecurity. The state is scared too.
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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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I never think any place is better than others.
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It [success] is really by mistake.
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I never felt like a Chinese citizen because I was pushed away at a very young age. My father, a writer, was a national enemy of the Communist Party. He was forbidden to write for 20 years.
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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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The motivation is really to say people can find the game of getting involved interesting and find the problem and really have the passion and the enthusiasm to solve it and move forward, but that’s all I know.
AI WEIWEI