In the end, I think, the state’s rigidity is a function of its own insecurity, its indecisiveness.
AI WEIWEIArt should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don’t think art is elite or mysterious.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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I think art certainly is the vehicle for us to develop any new ideas, to be creative, to extend our imagination, to change the current conditions.
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Art should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don’t think art is elite or mysterious.
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We are not on – even just a step away from the most brutal and primitive crudity. To be very crude on those issues, which is always challenges and we always have to look at the situation like a mirror, to draw some understanding.
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After I came back [to China], there was still a long period of time when I felt I had nothing to do.
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To express yourself needs a reason, but expressing yourself is the reason.
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You don’t have to march on Tiananmen, but you do have to be clear-minded, to find your own means of expression.
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New York has given me a lot, but I still don’t consider it home.
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Even though everybody who looked at me would call me a Chinese artist, that’s the 1980s. New York in the ’80s was not so interesting.
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Now many enterprises are made by individuals, so the attitude has started to change.
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I lived there [ in New York City] as an artist, but never as a Chinese artist.
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I never had secure, belonging feelings with this society [in China].
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I also have to speak out for people around me who are afraid, who think it is not worth it or who have totally given up hope. So I want to set an example: you can do it and this is OK, to speak out.
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I don’t belong to a working system. They only select people if you belong to one so you can be controlled.
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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.
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I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.
AI WEIWEI