Ai Weiwei Quotes

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.

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.

Now many enterprises are made by individuals, so the attitude has started to change.

I lived there [ in New York City] as an artist, but never as a Chinese artist.

As a total activity – I practice curating, art, architecture, writing, and publishing all together. I still act as a living creature.

For artists and intellectuals today, what is most needed is to be clear about social responsibility, because that is what most people automatically give up. Just to protect yourself as an individual is very political.

I think the pearls – one is a necklace, and another you have five hundred pounds of pearls, which may be one million pearls in a bowl – really show a kind of [society] condition.

If you don’t act, the danger becomes stronger.

It’s the place they take you before they give you over to the judicial system. You stay there for a year or two and they make you really suffer to confess everything.

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.