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.
AI WEIWEIThe [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.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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If people are being abused or even killed during an arrest, this is highly disturbing.
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It became like a symbolic thing, to be “an artist.” After Duchamp, I realized that being an artist is more about a lifestyle and attitude than producing some product.
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Technology is a liberation. I think the information age probably is the best thing to happen to the human race in human evolution.
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Creativity is the power to act.
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I never think any place is better than others.
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In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want — not only you, your whole family and all people like you.
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Choices after waking up: To be true or to lie? To take action or be brainwashed? To be free or be jailed?
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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.
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He will still mean danger. Modern technology requires calm. You shouldn’t trust anyone with a car who has no knowledge about vehicles or roads.
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The whole Chinese system – not just the political leadership, the military too, the whole power structure, our education system, the whole of society – is suffering from being cut off from the free flow of information.
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Politics is like air and water. And you know if there is bad politics. Everyone is polluted. Everyone is unhealthy. See the people walking on the street: how they act.
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I don’t think my father had a direct influence on me, but I do think, more or less, I was influenced by his independent individualism.
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But personally, I don’t think my work and my understanding of art is so much related to being Chinese, but the character of that. Maybe it’s beyond my own consciousness.
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The deadly weapon against totalitarian society is openness – doing everything very openly on the Internet, letting people know every detail, any little development. Once it is out there, everybody can make their own judgement.
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The fantasy we had with pearls was always so luxurious and unique with a kind of rareness.
AI WEIWEI