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I don't think it's worth discussing new directions in the context of Chinese art - there were no old directions, either. Chinese art has never had any clear orientation.

Ai Weiwei

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Ai Weiwei
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: May 18
Architect
Consultant
Contemporary Artist
Designer
Film Director
Human Rights Activist
Painter
Photographer
Sculptor
Social Activist
Peking
Wei-wei Ai
Weiwei Ai
Ai Wei Wei
Thinking
Context
Chinese
Worth
Either
Clear
Art
Orientation
Never
Discussing
Think
Directions

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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I don't like China. Even today, I still feel I have no emotional relations with this place.
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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 always want people to be confused, to be shocked or realize something later.
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[Cultural departments] don't care about culture. Maybe they're the furthest from the people who understand culture.
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Say what you say plainly, and then take responsibility for it.
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A historical property has morals and ethics of the society that created it and it can be revived. What I mean is that we can discover new possibilities from the process of dismantling, transforming, and recreating.
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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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Recently I danced in a video spoof of the song 'Gangnam Style,' and it was quickly banned across multiple Chinese online video platforms. But the story still traveled all over the world, carried in hundreds of international media reports.
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Chinese citizens have never had the right to really express their opinions in the constitution it says you can, but in the real world it is more dangerous. In the west people think it's a right they're born with. Here it's a right given by the government, and one that's not really practised.
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I wouldn’t say I’ve become more radical: I was born radical.
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You only have temporary curiosity, amusement, and challenges, but that does not necessarily mean you are really convinced that it's necessary or that it's not even worth to do it. It's just a way you have to set up some kind of activities to follow your instincts or your curiosities.
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Technology is a liberation. I think the information age probably is the best thing to happen to the human race in human evolution. Now you have the equal opportunity to equip yourself through information and knowledge and express yourself as an independent mind.
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Somehow, we [ Tan Dun and director Chen Kaige] were all privileged at the time we could be outside of China. But at the moment, we had no sense of what the future was going to be like.
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I am very much interested in the so-called useless object. I mean, it takes perfect craftsmanship, beautiful material carefully measured and crafted, but at the same time it’s really useless.
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To experience poetry is to see over and above reality. It is to discover that which is beyond the physical, to experience another life and another level of feeling. It is to wonder about the world, to understand the nature of people and, most importantly, to be shared with another, old or young, known or unknown.
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Everything is selected by the central government without good judgment or an understanding of culture to make it really safe. They will become nobody to maintain their power and be raised to the next higher level.
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Maybe being powerful means to be fragile.
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China is at a different stage of development, human rights are violated here much more often. And still, we see improvements even here.
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This world should be much more open and should be much more free, so the young people would have the chance to exercise the quality of their lives.
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Even though everybody who looked at me would call me a Chinese artist, that's the 1980s. New York in the '80s was not so interesting. I think it's quite narrow-minded. There wasn't much encouragement or opportunities for any artist - not just Chinese artists.
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