Creativity is the power to act.
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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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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The media is the message. It carries the full intention and the meaning. Once you change it…it’s very disturbing.
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Had I to create a name for these times, I’d say it is the age of craziness
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Art should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don’t think art is elite or mysterious.
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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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I saw [Allen Ginsberg] more as an old man who liked poetry and who had a lot of physical and emotional problems. We liked our time together.
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I think China is laughing about the results of the presidential elections. China, Russia, they all laugh about it.
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It’s just a way you have to set up some kind of activities to follow your instincts or your curiosities.
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People have been longing for this moment, because it symbolises a turning point in China’s relationship with the outside world.
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Everyone thinks the Chinese government selected me. Never ever. I was selected by Herzog and de Meuron.
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Even if there have been setbacks during these past years, China is changing. China’s society is opening.
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Society becomes very destructive.
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I think of art as coming from daily life, daily experience. I think it’s very important not to have it become work for some kind of elite circle.
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I have to find a place for my own. I have to search for my own happiness.
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Today, the general masses in this society are in this political-social condition that really encourages people to become rich and become a star and be unique.
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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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The world is not changing if you don’t shoulder the burden of responsibility.
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Each year, more people want to become artists.
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You need a purpose to express yourself, but that expression is its own purpose.
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If human rights are supposed to have any meaning, then they have to be discussed openly.
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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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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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I spent a lot of time standing on street corners [of New York City] talking to local residents. I spent time in bookstores and galleries. But most of the time, I really did not have much to do.
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I don’t want the next generation to fight the same fight as I did.
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We grew up in a very material-lacking socialist society, but today China is a capitalist society. It’s very materialistic. It’s full of desire and luxury goods.
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I came back [to Beijing ] because that’s the only time I had an excuse to come back, or otherwise I would never have a reason to come back.
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