Ai Weiwei Quotes
- All Quotes
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'Everything is art. Everything is politics.'
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I want to prove that the system is not working. . . . . You can’t simply say that the system is not working. You have to work through it
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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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If there is one who’s not free, then I am not free. If there is one who suffers, then I suffer.
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When the mayor of Nagoya denies the Nanjing Massacre, he gets blacklisted by the city of Nanjing. When the government of Sichuan denies 'tofu dregs' construction which caused the collapse of several schools, they get blacklisted by me.
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We have to give our opinion, we have to say something, or we are a part of it. As an artist I am forced to say something.
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Maybe there is something I got from it. Maybe you also start to be clear on certain things.
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Once you’ve tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country.
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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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A fine line separates Chinese intellectuals and professors from the political gangsters who protect them.
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Stupidity can win for a moment, but it can never really succeed because the nature of humans is to seek freedom. Rulers can delay that freedom, but they cannot stop it.
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My activism is a part of me. If my art has anything to do with me, then my activism is part of my art.
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It is as difficult for Chinese politicians to get a real smile from the people as it is to keep the sky blue and clouds white.
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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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No outdoor sports can be more elegant than throwing stones at autocracy; no melees can be more exciting than those in cyberspace.
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I think by shattering it we can create a new form, a new way to look at what is valuable-how we decide what is valuable.
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They all ask: Why? Why is it that this man’s name Ai Weiwei can never be typed on a Chinese computer or the whole sentence will disappear?
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They the government really want to maintain power. At the same time, they refuse to communicate. They refuse to have good intentions. They refuse to be sincere. How can that last?
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The biggest crime of a dictatorship is to eradicate human feelings from people.
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House arrest, travel restrictions, surveillance, stopping phone service, cutting the Internet connection. What we can still do is greet the crazy motherland once again.
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I think I have this responsibility to my father’s generation, and especially future generations.
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I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.
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This does not mean a meteor has fallen. This is the discovery of a star.
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We need to get out of the old language.