I think the pearls – one is a necklace, and another you have five hundred pounds of pearls, which may be one million pearls in a bowl – really show a kind of [society] condition.
AI WEIWEIIf civil society has nobody who protects the law, then what kind of society is that?
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
-
-
To express yourself needs a reason, but expressing yourself is the reason.
AI WEIWEI -
I believe [the architecture firm] Herzog and de Meuron and our collaboration made the product the best it could be.
AI WEIWEI -
If we all say the same thing, then I think the government has to listen. But because no one is saying it, I become singled out, even though what I’m saying is common sense.
AI WEIWEI -
I never really read Allen Ginsberg poetry, even though I have a book he gave me.
AI WEIWEI -
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.
AI WEIWEI -
Paintings can be painted with the left hand, the right hand, someone else’s hand, or many people’s hands. The scale of production is irrelevant to its content.
AI WEIWEI -
I’m an artist who is always looking for what is possible. I’m always looking to extend the boundaries.
AI WEIWEI -
This so-called contemporary art is not a form, but a philosophy of society.
AI WEIWEI -
It’s really rubbish that some kind of “technical” learning means you will be a better person because you know this skill better.
AI WEIWEI -
That’s why I always question this sense. The feeling of home really requires a lot of trust. It requires you to identify with it, which I always find myself very contradictory to.
AI WEIWEI -
They very often just try to cope with their own election, their own popularity, solving the problem or selling the ideas to meet their own voters. By doing that, it creates a great imbalance in terms of making deals or treaty or all those things.
AI WEIWEI -
Civilization has evolved toward more acceptance, understanding and tolerance of global thinking. If we accept differences, our creativity booms. It makes life much more colorful.
AI WEIWEI -
[Museums] all belongs to the cultural department, which is the biggest cultural department in the world.
AI WEIWEI -
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.
AI WEIWEI -
Of course, most luxury goods in China are for corrupted officials and their relatives. And that made China become the biggest luxury-goods market.
AI WEIWEI