I deal with students every day – from China, Germany, the United States, Hong Kong and Taiwan. And I’ve noticed that the Chinese students are the least trained in having a sense of aesthetics.
AI WEIWEIWe 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.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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We should use this public sphere and redefine – beyond China’s borders – what a government is allowed to do, where its powers end and where the realm of a citizen’s privacy begins.
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I never think any place is better than others.
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I never felt like a Chinese citizen because I was pushed away at a very young age. My father, a writer, was a national enemy of the Communist Party. He was forbidden to write for 20 years.
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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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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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The only way to avoid misunderstanding, war and bloodshed is to defend freedom of expression and to communicate with sincerity, concern and good intentions.
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Society becomes very destructive.
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The motivation is really to say people can find the game of getting involved interesting and find the problem and really have the passion and the enthusiasm to solve it and move forward, but that’s all I know.
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I spent a lot of time standing on street corners [of New York City] talking to local residents. I spent time in bookstores and galleries. But most of the time, I really did not have much to do.
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Today, we jump into this globalization of the economy and the internet age.
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The American experience influenced my understanding of individuality, basic human rights, freedom of expression and the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
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The intention to separate art from politics is itself a very political intention.
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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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Dictatorship is a story about death of others who turn out to be you coincidently.
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Every day I’m learning something new from the practice. It’s very rewarding.
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