Ai Weiwei Quotes
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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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But the internet is like a tree that is growing. The people will always have the last word – even if someone has a very weak, quiet voice.
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Three years after the CCTV headquarters fire in Beijing in February 2009, human skeletons lie forgotten. Is anyone accountable?
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If Shakespeare were alive today, he might be writing on Twitter.
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People always tell me, 'Weiwei, leave the nation, please.' Or 'Live longer and watch them die.' Either leave, or be patient and watch how they die. I really don’t know what I’m going to do.
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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 cannot ever accept the kind of conditions where you can sacrifice someone’s rights.
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The fundamental problem is not that there are limits on voicing different opinions here. The problem is that the whole society is dying through lack of responsibility or involvement.
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'Why are you so concerned about society?' That is always the question. And my answer is simple: 'Because you are an artist, you have to associate yourself with freedom of expression.'
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The Sichuan disaster is not the first nor the most wrongful. But all the details of this tragedy will be forgotten, and once again it will be like nothing ever happened. Eventually all these disasters will together create a bizarre miracle called civilization and evolution.
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In an environment without public platform nor protection, the individual is the most powerful and most responsible.
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It is better to have a retarded president who respects human values than a clever government without human values.
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The individual under this kind of life, with no rights, has absolutely no power in this land. How can they even ask you for creativity? Or imagination, or courage or passion?
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Art is not an end but a beginning.
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China has not established the rule of law and thus there is no justice.
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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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Freedom of expression is a very essential condition for me to make any art. Also, it is an essential value for my life. I have to protect this right and also to fight for the possibility.
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This simple form of repression, of using the method of not letting anyone speak, will never succeed.
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I also have to speak out for people around me who are afraid, who think it is not worth it or who have totally given up hope. So I want to set an example: you can do it and this is okay, to speak out.
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Police in China can do whatever they want; after 81 days in arbitrary detention you clearly realise that they don’t have to obey their own laws.
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I think restrictions are an essential condition in the fight for freedom of expression. It’s also a source for any kind of creativity.
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I have no sense of why I lost my freedom and if you do not know how you lost something, how can you protect it?'
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During the days in detention, I thought most about the moon.
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I don’t really care that much about if I want to be more successful or less successful in art, because I never think life and art should be separate. What’s life if you don’t have conversation and joy and anger?