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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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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
Make
Expression
Life
Fight
Condition
Fighting
Essential
Values
Essentials
Freedom
Possibility
Art
Protect
Also
Value
Right
Conditions

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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I don't think there is a distinct change, because in the West I'm not a person who can serve his purpose.
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I don't think I was very structured in that society and I don't really believe in personal success, which most Americans believe in.
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We should also leave behind discrimination, because it is narrow-minded and ignorant, denies contact and warmth and corrodes mankind's belief that we can better ourselves. The only way to avoid misunderstanding, war and bloodshed is to defend freedom of expression and to communicate with sincerity, concern and good intentions.
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You need a purpose to express yourself, but that expression is its own purpose.
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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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For years, I refused to go to any openings, not even my own.
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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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New York has given me a lot, but I still don't consider it home.
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A lot of the time [in the U.S.], I was thinking about how spending time is always questionable or is always the biggest obstacle in my life.
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I think it's more important to show your work to the public.
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Warhol came from an ordinary family and he had a profound understanding about capitalism and material culture. He was probably one of the few Western artists - or artists from the United States - that could be considered a true product of his time and brought out that kind of spirit of the culture.
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This is a very general understanding of art in China, that being an artist can make you money and turn you into a star.
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That's why I always question this sense. The feeling of home really requires a lot of trust. It requires you to identify with it, which I always find myself very contradictory to.
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Art is always about overcoming obstacles between the inner condition and the skill for expression.
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It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that.
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Destroy or build. Crazy or noncrazy. I'm not nostalgic about the old city. I don't enjoy it that much.
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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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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.
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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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I am everywhere and I am nowhere. That's the beauty of the Internet Age.
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