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Say what you say plainly, and then take responsibility for it.

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
Responsibility
Take
Plainly

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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I think we cannot have a double standard. We cannot see our art as different from the reality. We cannot use two different sets of judgment.
Ai Weiwei
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The freedom of speech is an important yardstick for a society's level of civilization.
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Selling high or low doesn't mean anything. It has to do purely with the market.
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If there is no free speech, every single life has lived in vain
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Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
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If I look at it, I would laugh. I don't know how I became successful.
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China partially wants to become part of the world. By hosting the Olympics and the Expo, they made a big effort to tell people: Look, we are the same. They want to be accepted by the international community.
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Now many enterprises are made by individuals, so the attitude has started to change.
Ai Weiwei
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A small act is worth a million thoughts.
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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.
Ai Weiwei
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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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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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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.
Ai Weiwei
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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.
Ai Weiwei
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There are many cases and layers of racist behavior in the US - from police treatment to the issues of education and job opportunities. In America, however, such cases are being discussed publically.
Ai Weiwei
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I spent a lot of time standing on street corners [of New York City] talking to local residents. I spent time in bookstores and galleries. But most of the time, I really did not have much to do.
Ai Weiwei
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The media is the message. It carries the full intention and the meaning. Once you change it...it's very disturbing.
Ai Weiwei
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To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It's a very complicated process to do large projects. You start to see the society, how it functions, how it works. Then you have a lot of criticism about how it works.
Ai Weiwei
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For me, it is OK as long as I can breathe, as long as my heart is pumping, as long as I can express myself.
Ai Weiwei
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Warhol influenced me because of his writing. If I had never read his writings and interviews, I would never have understood his work.
Ai Weiwei