No state or society can claim to have established human rights once and for all.
AI WEIWEIEven if there have been setbacks during these past years, China is changing. China’s society is opening.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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It’s really rubbish that some kind of “technical” learning means you will be a better person because you know this skill better.
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Just look at the statistics: Each university has tens of thousands of applications for students who want to be in art school, but they can only accept a few hundred.
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I don’t think China should care if this crazy old guy should have a show here or not.
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Many people are going to use [Beijing National Stadium], which makes it more meaningful. If we don’t design it, somebody else has to design it.
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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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You know about the fantasies related to the classics, but there is no real discussion about today’s life and no discussion of the real conditions – which is really sickening.
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The [China] government has improved in the last years. Of course, the structure is still the same; there’s still a one-party system and strong censorship.
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The people will always have the last word – even if someone has a very weak, quiet voice. Such power will collapse because of a whisper.
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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 don’t belong to a working system. They only select people if you belong to one so you can be controlled.
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To call yourself a Chinese artist or woman artist or African artist reflects a certain kind of condition. To me, that is not necessary.
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The practice of photography is no longer a means for recording reality. Instead, it has become reality itself
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I always want to design a frame that’s open to everyone. I don’t see art as a secret code.
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Of course, people will call you an old artist or young artist, which is just a character of you.
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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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