I saw [Allen Ginsberg] more as an old man who liked poetry and who had a lot of physical and emotional problems. We liked our time together.
AI WEIWEII will bring 1,001 Chinese to participate as my artwork there – any Chinese who is a Chinese passport holder and over eighteen years old could apply through my blog.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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I grew up in a desert, which has no kind of imagination.
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If it’s possible, I will have some noodles in the morning and start talking to people, start to think about a few things in my head.
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Any politician who respects China’s government should tell it openly what is in his heart. It is disrespectful to keep quiet about such issues – both vis-a-vis the government and the people concerned.
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The freedom of speech is an important yardstick for a society’s level of civilization.
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Overturning police cars is a super-intense workout. It’s probably the only sport I enjoy.
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The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It’s as simple as that.
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It’s like the mountains, the ocean and the rivers. It has its own geological forms. Societies cannot be flat. But during change, human rights, human dignity and free speech have to be protected. Otherwise, we’ll be going backward.
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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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The fantasy we had with pearls was always so luxurious and unique with a kind of rareness.
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Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it.
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We grew up in a very material-lacking socialist society, but today China is a capitalist society. It’s very materialistic. It’s full of desire and luxury goods.
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I also have to speak out for people around me who are afraid, who think it is not worth it or who have totally given up hope. So I want to set an example: you can do it and this is OK, to speak out.
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I believe [the architecture firm] Herzog and de Meuron and our collaboration made the product the best it could be.
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How to become a really modern society when today we are so – as a human being, we feel so powerful. We have high technology and a superb way of controlling our life. And at the same time, in many ways we are so primitive.
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I have people working together, doing different things: architecture, art installation, photography, publishing, and curatorial works and design.
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In China, we don’t have any contemporary art museums. Until a few years ago, we didn’t even have a gallery.
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In the end, I think, the state’s rigidity is a function of its own insecurity, its indecisiveness.
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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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Had I to create a name for these times, I’d say it is the age of craziness
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These folks are creative and ironic, and the government can ultimately not control what is going on in their heads.
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I think China is laughing about the results of the presidential elections. China, Russia, they all laugh about it.
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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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New York has given me a lot, but I still don’t consider it home.
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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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Without freedom of speech, there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.
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China restricts the society’s freedom of speech. The Communist Party imposes these limits because it lacks confidence towards the future and has no ideals.
AI WEIWEI