I always want people to be confused, to be shocked or realize something later.
AI WEIWEIMy angst and my insecurity reflect the state’s angst and insecurity. The state is scared too.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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This so-called contemporary art is not a form, but a philosophy of society.
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Now you have the equal opportunity to equip yourself through information and knowledge and express yourself as an independent mind.
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I think you can give meaning to any condition; you can be poor or unsuccessful or be so-called successful. But I don’t think that it would give an individual human being a better condition.
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The leadership knows that you cannot solve the issues of China’s future with the means of the past. The demographic consequences of the one-child policy, the build-up of the welfare state.
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Maybe being powerful means to be fragile.
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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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We should use this public sphere and redefine – beyond China’s borders – what a government is allowed to do, where its powers end and where the realm of a citizen’s privacy begins.
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I want people to see their own power.
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[Cultural department] understand nothing but bureaucratic daily affairs. They don’t care about culture.
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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.
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Of course, most luxury goods in China are for corrupted officials and their relatives. And that made China become the biggest luxury-goods market.
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Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don’t think art is elite or mysterious. I don’t think anybody can separate art from politics.
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Just look at the statistics: Each university has tens of thousands of applications for students who want to be in art school, but they can only accept a few hundred.
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We’re different, and you’re dangerous.” That kind of thinking stops human, civilized evolution. It’s dangerous to create that kind of tension.
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In my case, I was stuck there for quite a while. New York is large enough to be a very abstract city, so nobody cares.
AI WEIWEI