Ai Weiwei Quotes
- All Quotes
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I will never leave China, unless I am forced to. Because China is mine. I will not leave something that belongs to me in the hands of people I do not trust.
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There is no revolution like the Communist revolution. You simply burn all the books, kill all of the thinking people and use the poor proletariat to create a very simple benchmark to gauge social change.
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Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.
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Tradition is only a readymade. It’s for us to make a new gesture-to use it as a reference, more as a starting point than conclusion. Of course, there are very different attitudes and interpretations about our past and our memory of it. And ours is never a complete one, but is broken. In China, but also in my practice.
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They have to have an enemy. They have to create you as their enemy in order for them to continue their existence. It’s very ironic.
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I don’t know about five years from now. I have no plans for that. Maybe I’ll be forgotten by then.
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They don’t believe in liberty. They don’t believe in China before the Communists. There is only one simple, clear task: to protect their control, to maintain their governing. Which is such a pity.
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Contemporary art and the Communist Party are an impossible situation. It’s like oil and water-they can never mix.
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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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I think we have too much history. It’s not so important. I think people should have fun and enjoy their own time. I haven’t done much, so why should I waste people’s memory?'
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This is something you can never erase. It leaves a scar on you.
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Later I became very involved in writing. I really enjoyed that moment of writing. People would pass around my sentences. That was a feeling I never had before. It was like a bullet out of the gun.
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When I checked into a hospital in Germany, after having been beaten by police in Sichuan, I was told there was bleeding in my brain and I was near fatal collapse. I was rushed into surgery. When I awoke I felt like a normal person again. But I will not feel whole until I and my fellow Chinese can live freely.
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In China, there is a long history of the government not revealing information, so it’s difficult for the Chinese people to ever know the truth. It is vital that we try to bring that truth to life.
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They tell us it will be about 'emotions' and 'friendship,' that it will be a night of joy. Who are they kidding?
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The Chinese authorities think of artists as prostitutes. And in reality it’s true: in the Communist system artists just represent what the power structure seeks them to represent. It is prostitution.'
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My blog is an extension of my thinking. Why should I deform my thinking simply because I live under a government that espouses an ideology which I believe to be totally against humanity?
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The most unfair things that could have happened in a society fell upon a blind man. This is something that no one can accept or explain away with any excuse. Everyone will ask: 'Do we actually have to exist in a society like this?'
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I wouldn’t say I’ve become more radical: I was born radical.
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The government may be made up of clever, sensible people. But if they do not believe in basic human values, the more clever or shrewd they are the greater the tragedy they will create.
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The 81 days of detention were a nightmare. I am not unique; it happened to many people in China. Conditions were extreme, created by a system that thinks it is above the law and has become a kind of monstrous machine. There were so many moments when I felt desperate and hopeless. But still, the next morning, I heard the birds singing.
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I see myself not as a leader but as somebody who initiates things or finds the problem or provokes a discussion. You have to be always ready to engage, willing to participate. When events or history happen, you just have to be aware and respond.
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I think it’s a responsibility for any artist to protect freedom of expression and to use any way to extend this power.
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A land that rejects the truth, barricades itself against change and lacks the spirit of freedom is hopeless.