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.
AI WEIWEI
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.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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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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Many people are going to use [Beijing National Stadium], which makes it more meaningful. If we don’t design it, somebody else has to design it.
AI WEIWEI -
Hopefully, other successes aren’t like me. It carries much more meaning to other people; my success story is irrelevant. It doesn’t make any sense.
AI WEIWEI -
The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.
AI WEIWEI -
To express yourself needs a reason, but expressing yourself is the reason.
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That’s why the country can’t face up to open competition – unless it resorts to measures like North Korea.
AI WEIWEI -
[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.
AI WEIWEI -
The intention to separate art from politics is itself a very political intention.
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Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.
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To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It’s a very complicated process to do large projects.
AI WEIWEI -
Of course, people will call you an old artist or young artist, which is just a character of you.
AI WEIWEI -
It also makes humanity much more safe. If we see pureness somewhere as something to be desired, the trouble starts.
AI WEIWEI -
To the media, I have become a symbolic figure, critical of China. According to the government, I am a dangerous threat.
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Of course, there [in China] has to be chaos. It has to be crazy, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong about it except this government, which is really incapable of doing anything meaningful.
AI WEIWEI -
For years, I refused to go to any openings, not even my own.
AI WEIWEI