Of course, there [in China] has to be chaos. It has to be crazy, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong about it except this government, which is really incapable of doing anything meaningful.
AI WEIWEI[Being unique] gives so much privilege to people who can make it, rather than having some moral and aesthetic discussions.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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The society was so different [in China] – it was a feudalistic society. It didn’t come to a point of industrial revolution until twenty years ago.
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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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To 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.
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[Therefore] holding a trial outside the court. I think that is fairness, that is justice, that is a civil society. Otherwise call it an evil society because everything is hidden.
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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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I think by shattering it we can create a new form, a new way to look at what is valuable – how we decide what is valuable.
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Each year, more people want to become artists.
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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 think optimism is whether you are still exhilarated by life, whether you are curious, whether you still believe there is possibility.
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Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
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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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And who is going to win the competition if U.S. cannot hold a strong ideology? And even the U.S. would’ve lost the ground to win.
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To the media, I have become a symbolic figure, critical of China. According to the government, I am a dangerous threat.
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I think Donald Trump should cool down a little bit. To pay more attention to the history. To really understand what U.S.’s value is about. I think, as a president, those things you always have to ask.
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The freedom of speech is an important yardstick for a society’s level of civilization.
AI WEIWEI