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[Museums] all belongs to the cultural department, which is the biggest cultural department in the world.

Ai Weiwei

A nation like China has become one of the biggest production fields for exporting cheap labor, which also re-questions our history and past, re-questions human desire, and the human illusions of the past.
AI WEIWEI

Biggest Cheap Country Desire Exporting Field Labor Past Production
Otherwise, I think the building can be bigger, larger, and the city can be much more crazy. The problem is the government structure is so deadly stupid, not really solving problems but creating a lot of problems itself every day.
AI WEIWEI

Bigger Building City Crazy Larger More Much Stupid Thinking
What counts in the end is what the government does.
AI WEIWEI

Count Doe End Government
I think optimism is whether you are still exhilarated by life, whether you are curious, whether you still believe there is possibility.
AI WEIWEI

Believe Curious Optimism Still Thinking
Now I’ve come to such a mixed culture: America, Europe, South America, Africa. And the politics are changing everywhere all the time and becoming even more unpredictable.
AI WEIWEI

Changing Country Culture Politics Problem Unpredictable
My typical day is I wake up and appreciate that I can still wake up.
AI WEIWEI

Appreciate Typical Wake Up
The whole Chinese system – not just the political leadership, the military too, the whole power structure, our education system, the whole of society – is suffering from being cut off from the free flow of information.
AI WEIWEI

Country Cutting Educational Leadership Military Political Power Structure
It’s very essential values that we all have to protect. But in Chinese society, people are giving up on protecting these values.
AI WEIWEI

Country Essential Giving People Protect Protecting Society Value
It’s like the mountains, the ocean and the rivers. It has its own geological forms. Societies cannot be flat. But during change, human rights, human dignity and free speech have to be protected. Otherwise, we’ll be going backward.
AI WEIWEI

Backward Form Geographical Human Mountain Ocean Protected Right Speech
I don’t believe in a sense of home.
AI WEIWEI

Believe Home Sense
I think it’s a responsibility for any artist to protect freedom of expression and to use any way to extend this power.
AI WEIWEI

Artist Expression Extend Freedom Power Responsibility Thinking
The society was so different [in China] – it was a feudalistic society. It didn’t come to a point of industrial revolution until twenty years ago.
AI WEIWEI

Come Country Different Feudalistic Industrial Point Revolution Society Twenties Year
That’s why the country can’t face up to open competition – unless it resorts to measures like North Korea.
AI WEIWEI

Competition Country Face Measure Open Resort
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 WEIWEI

Another Five Hundred Million Necklace Pearl Pound Thinking
My angst and my insecurity reflect the state’s angst and insecurity. The state is scared too.
AI WEIWEI

Angst Insecurity Reflect Scared State
The world is not changing if you don’t shoulder the burden of responsibility.
AI WEIWEI

Burden Changing Responsibility Shoulder World
This so-called fame or being better off doesn’t really attract me at all.
AI WEIWEI

All Attract Better Called Fame
I was an illegal alien for many, many years. I couldn’t move. If I moved I could not even get a visa back.
AI WEIWEI

Alien Illegal Move Moving Visa Back Year
Say what you say plainly, and then take responsibility for it.
AI WEIWEI

Plainly Responsibility Responsible Taking
Maybe being powerful means to be fragile.
AI WEIWEI

Fragile Mean Powerful Recovery
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

Country Director Future Going Moment Outside Priilied Somehow Time
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.
AI WEIWEI

Art Certainty Creative Extend Idea Imagination Thinking
You don’t have to march on Tiananmen, but you do have to be clear-minded, to find your own means of expression.
AI WEIWEI

Clear Expression March Mean Minded Own Tiananmen
[Cultural department] understand nothing but bureaucratic daily affairs. They don’t care about culture.
AI WEIWEI

Affair Care Culture Daily Understand
I don’t think there is a distinct change, because in the West I’m not a person who can serve his purpose.
AI WEIWEI

Change Distinct Person Purpose Thinking West
The intention to separate art from politics is itself a very political intention.
AI WEIWEI

Intension Intention Political Politics Separate
Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it.
AI WEIWEI

Art Life never Separate

[Museums] all belongs to the cultural department, which is the biggest cultural department in the world.

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[Museums] all belongs to the cultural department, which is the biggest cultural department in the world.

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