We literally lived underground. We dug a hole and lived there for years. My father cleaned public toilets, even though he was a highly respected poet.
AI WEIWEIThat’s why the country can’t face up to open competition – unless it resorts to measures like North Korea.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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To express yourself needs a reason, but expressing yourself is the reason.
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I was an illegal alien for many, many years. I couldn’t move. If I moved I could not even get a visa back.
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How to become a really modern society when today we are so – as a human being, we feel so powerful. We have high technology and a superb way of controlling our life. And at the same time, in many ways we are so primitive.
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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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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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Now many enterprises are made by individuals, so the attitude has started to change.
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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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[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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I curated this show [Shanghai Biennale ], I was by no means trying to shock people or be controversial.
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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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I am everywhere and I am nowhere. That’s the beauty of the Internet Age.
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I don’t personally feel any association with a kind of culture related to state, or culture related to power, which I think is always disgusting.
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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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Everything is selected by the central government without good judgment or an understanding of culture to make it really safe. They will become nobody to maintain their power and be raised to the next higher level.
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Nowadays, China is experiencing the detrimental effects of such decisions. Its citizens have no creativity.
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We move so fast that memory is something we can only grasp
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There are no outdoor sports as graceful as throwing stones at a dictatorship.
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I’m an artist who is always looking for what is possible. I’m always looking to extend the boundaries.
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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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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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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 think U.S. and China is a big opportunity, to be seen as partner or some kind of strategic partner maybe. But those kind of powers have a way of getting too big, then we’ll have competition.
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Life is never guaranteed to be safe, so we better use it while we are still in good condition.
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As long as I can communicate, I’m not so lonely. If I cannot travel, or do art, or have company, if they take away all my belongings, it doesn’t matter at all.
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We have to give our opinion, we have to say something, or we are a part of it. As an artist I am forced to say something.
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They see how dramatic U.S. has to be put this kind of shame on its own – cannot handle the situation. Or show such a difficulty with this liberal ideas. Men or women created equal. And to defend those very essential ideas.
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