Say what you say plainly, and then take responsibility for it.
AI WEIWEITo 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.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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We are living in a popular culture where everything is overexposed.
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If my art has nothing to do with people’s pain and sorrow, what is ‘art’ for?
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I think I’m just a traveler. When you walk across a river and there’s no bridge, you build one. I’m used to having to deal with Chinese Communist ideology.
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Life is much more interesting when you make a little bit of effort.
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China is at a different stage of development, human rights are violated here much more often. And still, we see improvements even here.
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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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I’m totally independent. I don’t bear any responsibility to any system.
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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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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 don’t think China has professional museums – not in the past, present, or near future.
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I don’t think I was very structured in that society and I don’t really believe in personal success, which most Americans believe in.
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I came back [to Beijing ] because that’s the only time I had an excuse to come back, or otherwise I would never have a reason to come back.
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I never regret anything.
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Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it.
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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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