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.
AI WEIWEIEverything is art. Everything is politics.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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If there is no freedom of expression, then the beauty of life is lost. Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it’s a human need.
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For artists and intellectuals today, what is most needed is to be clear about social responsibility, because that is what most people automatically give up. Just to protect yourself as an individual is very political.
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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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Even today the borders they’re seeing the physical borders are very different from the political borders. Because all those powers are so connected, and you cannot even see whose interest in what move.
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This week, the world gathers in Beijing for the 2008 Olympic games. This is the extraordinary moment China has been dreaming of for 100 years.
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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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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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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 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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Say what you say plainly, and then take responsibility for it.
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I grew up in a desert, which has no kind of imagination.
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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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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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It is to wonder about the world, to understand the nature of people and, most importantly, to be shared with another, old or young, known or unknown.
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I believe [the architecture firm] Herzog and de Meuron and our collaboration made the product the best it could be.
AI WEIWEI