The intention to separate art from politics is itself a very political intention.
AI WEIWEIEach year, more people want to become artists.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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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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Your own acts tell the world who you are and what kind of society you think it should be.
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Selling high or low doesn’t mean anything. It has to do purely with the market.
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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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A lot of the time [in the U.S.], I was thinking about how spending time is always questionable or is always the biggest obstacle in my life.
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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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Even today the borders they’re seeing the physical borders are very different from the political borders. Because all those powers are so connected, and you cannot even see whose interest in what move.
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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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The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.
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Being an artist is more of a mindset, a way of seeing things; it is no longer so much about producing something.
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Liberty is about our rights to question everything.
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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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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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I’m just bringing them to Kassel to see the art show, and pay their room and board.
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The only way to avoid misunderstanding, war and bloodshed is to defend freedom of expression and to communicate with sincerity, concern and good intentions.
AI WEIWEI