I think U.S. and China is a big opportunity, to be seen as partner or some kind of strategic partner maybe. But those kind of powers have a way of getting too big, then we’ll have competition.
AI WEIWEIIt is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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I think of art as coming from daily life, daily experience. I think it’s very important not to have it become work for some kind of elite circle.
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I think by not letting young people be fully informed, how can they have energy and passion and the right picture of the world? I think that’s the true crime.
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I think to deal with the situation like human crisis, 65 million people being displaced, lost their home, and with such human tragedy, has to make every level of society to be conscious and to be alert about the situation.
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…photographs are facts, but not necessarily true… The present always surpasses the past, and the future will not care about today.
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Hopefully, other successes aren’t like me. It carries much more meaning to other people; my success story is irrelevant. It doesn’t make any sense.
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Art should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don’t think art is elite or mysterious.
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I curated this show [Shanghai Biennale ], I was by no means trying to shock people or be controversial.
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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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The project or a few ideas which are not finished or if there are possible directions and what will lead into another game. It’s always like setting up some kind of game you can continuously play.
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We literally lived underground. We dug a hole and lived there for years. My father cleaned public toilets, even though he was a highly respected poet.
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[Cultural department] understand nothing but bureaucratic daily affairs. They don’t care about culture.
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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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Mass production is nothing new. Weren’t cathedrals built through mass production? The pyramids?
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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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A clear understanding of such differences will help the rest of the world understand China and all that is happening to the nation.
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