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.
AI WEIWEITechnology is a liberation. I think the information age probably is the best thing to happen to the human race in human evolution.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future.
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If civil society has nobody who protects the law, then what kind of society is that?
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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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They very often just try to cope with their own election, their own popularity, solving the problem or selling the ideas to meet their own voters. By doing that, it creates a great imbalance in terms of making deals or treaty or all those things.
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Today, the general masses in this society are in this political-social condition that really encourages people to become rich and become a star and be unique.
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If there is no freedom of expression, then the beauty of life is lost. Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it’s a human need.
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It [success] is really by mistake.
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In my life, I often make so-called major decisions by very quick, immediate responses.
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I think U.S. and China is a big opportunity, to be seen as partner or some kind of strategic partner maybe. But those kind of powers have a way of getting too big, then we’ll have competition.
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Whenever there is injustice, there is tension. But in China it is very hard to release your anger unless you burn yourself or you jump from a bridge. In a society where there is no freedom of the press, it is difficult for victims to be noticed.
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My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall. Art should live in the heart of the people.
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I think art certainly is the vehicle for us to develop any new ideas, to be creative, to extend our imagination, to change the current conditions.
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People who can’t do that don’t get a sense of responsibility. And if you lack a sense of responsibility, you push the blame onto the system.
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Art should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don’t think art is elite or mysterious.
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I was an illegal alien for many, many years. I couldn’t move. If I moved I could not even get a visa back.
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I grew up in a desert, which has no kind of imagination.
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If artists cannot speak up for human dignity or rights, then who else will do it?
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So for too long Americans take liberty as granted. We think we are in the safe hand, the democracy and the liberty, which is not true. And it can be even getting much worse than today.
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At the moment about 350,000 students return to China from abroad each year – 350,000 young and educated people. I know about them because they know me and often ask me in the street if they can take a selfie with me.
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The whole attitude of society has become much more open and realistic. They realize that the only way to make a more democratic and free society is to let different opinions come out.
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In my case, I was stuck there for quite a while. New York is large enough to be a very abstract city, so nobody cares.
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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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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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A nation that has no music and no fairytales is a tragedy.
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I think you can give meaning to any condition; you can be poor or unsuccessful or be so-called successful. But I don’t think that it would give an individual human being a better condition.
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Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. Simply put, aside from using one’s imagination – perhaps more importantly – creativity is the power to act.
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