No state or society can claim to have established human rights once and for all.
AI WEIWEIThere are no outdoor sports as graceful as throwing stones at a dictatorship.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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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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Even if I have hundreds of things to do, the disconnected feeling is still there because it is very hard to find a real purpose of life.
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I spend a lot of time talking to journalists.
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I’m totally independent. I don’t bear any responsibility to any system.
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Once you’ve tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country.
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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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The Internet has established a public sphere and developed a pressure which the government can no longer ignore.
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It became like a symbolic thing, to be “an artist.” After Duchamp, I realized that being an artist is more about a lifestyle and attitude than producing some product.
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The so-called culture nowadays is only a fake one with a superficial front. It is an empty lie.
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The whole Chinese system – not just the political leadership, the military too, the whole power structure, our education system, the whole of society – is suffering from being cut off from the free flow of information.
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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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[Therefore] holding a trial outside the court. I think that is fairness, that is justice, that is a civil society. Otherwise call it an evil society because everything is hidden.
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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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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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We never really see the global situation as a total situation. Today’s political leaders are still lacking of the vision.
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China didn’t want to lose the cutting edge of technology. So the idea of having a Sina Weibo was an attempt to compete with Twitter. However, it has no soul – which is freedom of expression. Nevertheless,
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These folks are creative and ironic, and the government can ultimately not control what is going on in their heads.
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The Internet changes the structure of society all the time — this massiveness made of individuals.
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The project or a few ideas which are not finished or if there are possible directions and what will lead into another game. It’s always like setting up some kind of game you can continuously play.
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Growing up, my family was an enemy of the state. I have experienced more disappointment than joy, much more sad stories or desperate conditions.
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I think to deal with the situation like human crisis, 65 million people being displaced, lost their home, and with such human tragedy, has to make every level of society to be conscious and to be alert about the situation.
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The society was so different [in China] – it was a feudalistic society. It didn’t come to a point of industrial revolution until twenty years ago.
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I wouldn’t say I’ve become more radical: I was born radical.
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There’s no such thing as “fixed” culture. China is also becoming more global. Its problems are becoming international problems, becoming German problems, becoming American problems.
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I’m doing quite a few things now. In one day, I will go to Kassel, Germany, for a documentary project I’ve been preparing for half a year.
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I will bring 1,001 Chinese to participate as my artwork there – any Chinese who is a Chinese passport holder and over eighteen years old could apply through my blog.
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