To call yourself a Chinese artist or woman artist or African artist reflects a certain kind of condition. To me, that is not necessary.
AI WEIWEII 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.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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There’s no such thing as “fixed” culture. China is also becoming more global. Its problems are becoming international problems, becoming German problems, becoming American problems.
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I don’t like China. Even today, I still feel I have no emotional relations with this place.
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As a total activity – I practice curating, art, architecture, writing, and publishing all together. I still act as a living creature.
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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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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.
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Destroy or build. Crazy or noncrazy. I’m not nostalgic about the old city. I don’t enjoy it that much.
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If there’s the right condition, I always want to express the concept or ideas in a very independent way.
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For me, it is OK as long as I can breathe, as long as my heart is pumping, as long as I can express myself.
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A small act is worth a million thoughts.
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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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You need a purpose to express yourself, but that expression is its own purpose.
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This world should be much more open and should be much more free, so the young people would have the chance to exercise the quality of their lives.
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I always want to design a frame that’s open to everyone. I don’t see art as a secret code.
AI WEIWEI -
To experience poetry is to see over and above reality. It is to discover that which is beyond the physical, to experience another life and another level of feeling.
AI WEIWEI -
I lived there [ in New York City] as an artist, but never as a Chinese artist.
AI WEIWEI






