I don’t personally feel any association with a kind of culture related to state, or culture related to power, which I think is always disgusting.
AI WEIWEIEven 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.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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[Cultural department] understand nothing but bureaucratic daily affairs. They don’t care about culture.
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I don’t think [price] reflects if the work is good or bad.A good artist shouldn’t be nervous about that.
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If I really have nothing to do, I just watch my cats, take some photos, and go back to my personal blog.
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I grew up in a desert, which has no kind of imagination.
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We should also leave behind discrimination, because it is narrow-minded and ignorant, denies contact and warmth; and corrodes mankind’s belief that we can better ourselves.
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China hasn’t only existed for one day. Now, the whole nation has become richer and it’s become a problem. The problem is universal. The factor is big. Everybody has to rethink the balance of the world and the whole landscape.
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This is a very general understanding of art in China, that being an artist can make you money and turn you into a star.
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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.
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When you have strict censorship of the internet, young students cannot receive a full education. Their view of the world is imbalanced. There can be no true discussion of the issues.
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It’s really rubbish that some kind of “technical” learning means you will be a better person because you know this skill better.
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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.
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This so-called contemporary art is not a form, but a philosophy of society.
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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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At the moment about 350,000 students return to China from abroad each year – 350,000 young and educated people. I know about them because they know me and often ask me in the street if they can take a selfie with me.
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I have always stated I designed the stadium as a toilet seat.
AI WEIWEI