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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
Never
Discussing
Think
Directions
Thinking
Context
Chinese
Worth
Either
Clear
Art
Orientation

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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Artists are the worst [people]. They are selfish, self-centred they don't care what happens.
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Each year, more people want to become artists.
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Even if I have hundreds of things to do, the disconnected feeling is still there because it is very hard to find a real purpose of life.
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Growing up, my family was an enemy of the state. I have experienced more disappointment than joy, much more sad stories or desperate conditions.
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My situation gives me certain ideas about beauty or the excitement of life, but that doesn't mean other people can necessarily appreciate it.
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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. That's why the country can't face up to open competition - unless it resorts to measures like North Korea.
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Maybe [success] is because I'm in China and I'm more open. Maybe it's my independent behavior, or because I participated in certain projects. I have no idea.
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Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
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New York was not a romantic city at [80th]. Nobody knows who you are and you don't have to care about anybody else. It's a very cold city, I should say.
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I never regret anything.
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Even if there have been setbacks during these past years, China is changing. China's society is opening.
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I remember one little rainy day I went searching for this apartment and I saw so many people standing on a stoop on the corner in the rain. Later I realized, that was drug traffic. They were all buying drugs.
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If human rights are supposed to have any meaning, then they have to be discussed openly.
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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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Of course, there [in China] has to be chaos. It has to be crazy, and I don't think there's anything wrong about it except this government, which is really incapable of doing anything meaningful.
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You can never know what is and what is not powerful, but you can always find out what the powerful people are scared of. A state like China looks so powerful, but they are so scared of the Internet, so the Internet is more powerful than them.
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After I came back [to China], there was still a long period of time when I felt I had nothing to do.
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There are no outdoor sports as graceful as throwing stones at a dictatorship.
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If I really have nothing to do, I just watch my cats, take some photos, and go back to my personal blog.
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The museums used to be exhibition halls for government propaganda, and now every city wants to build a museum. A few thousand are to be built in the next few years, all using taxpayer money. But there is no system, no research, no content, no good programs, no good managers.
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