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 WEIWEIDemocracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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These are nonviolent people who have lost their freedom simply because they expressed their ideas….In truth, they are heroes of our time.
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I grew up in a desert, which has no kind of imagination.
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I think art is a very important weapon to achieve human freedom
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To give a price to an artwork, no matter how high or low, is always absurd. It’s not something that can be measured by money or by certain numbers.
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In my life, I often make so-called major decisions by very quick, immediate responses.
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You only have temporary curiosity, amusement, and challenges, but that does not necessarily mean you are really convinced that it’s necessary or that it’s not even worth to do it.
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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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You start to see the society, how it functions, how it works. Then you have a lot of criticism about how it works.
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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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It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that. There are crises and emergencies all the time, we might not even be aware of some. But I am afraid we’ll have to wait and observe precisely what the government is up to.
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But personally, I don’t think my work and my understanding of art is so much related to being Chinese, but the character of that. Maybe it’s beyond my own consciousness.
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You need a purpose to express yourself, but that expression is its own purpose.
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If people are being abused or even killed during an arrest, this is highly disturbing.
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Paintings can be painted with the left hand, the right hand, someone else’s hand, or many people’s hands. The scale of production is irrelevant to its content.
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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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They’ve become part of a conspiracy, collaborators of the crime, which is lying to the general public and trying to hide the kind of criminal acts happening in many cases.
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The media is the message. It carries the full intention and the meaning. Once you change it…it’s very disturbing.
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This so-called contemporary art is not a form, but a philosophy of society.
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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.
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Imagine one day, the hateful world around you collapses. And it is your attitude, words and actions that put an end to it. Will you be excited?
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Whenever there is injustice, there is tension. But in China it is very hard to release your anger unless you burn yourself or you jump from a bridge. In a society where there is no freedom of the press, it is difficult for victims to be noticed.
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Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. Simply put, aside from using one’s imagination – perhaps more importantly – creativity is the power to act.
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Maybe being powerful means to be fragile.
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I think optimism is whether you are still exhilarated by life, whether you are curious, whether you still believe there is possibility.
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Life is never guaranteed to be safe, so we better use it while we are still in good condition.
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Choices after waking up: To be true or to lie? To take action or be brainwashed? To be free or be jailed?
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