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It became like a symbolic thing, to be “an artist.” After Duchamp, I realized that being an artist is more about a lifestyle and attitude than producing some product.

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
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Lifestyle
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Realized
Became
Products
Attitude
Artist
Symbolic
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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.
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[Shanghai Biennale] has been my attitude for as long as I've been practicing art and other cultural-related activities.
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No matter what happens, nothing can prevent the historical process by which society demands freedom and democracy.
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Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.
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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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[Cultural department] understand nothing but bureaucratic daily affairs. They don't care about culture.
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I think Allen [Ginsberg] was a person who's like a child.
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Behind every political deal in this country, the first casualties are always the ordinary people, who are barely treated as human.
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Measuring national prestige by gold medals is like using Viagra to judge the potency of a man.
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This so-called contemporary art is not a form, but a philosophy of society.
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I will never leave China, unless I am forced to. Because China is mine. I will not leave something that belongs to me in the hands of people I do not trust.
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I'm always interested in people who are not orientated in art circles to become part of it.
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My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall.
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I never had a sense of home.
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We grew up in a very material-lacking socialist society, but today China is a capitalist society. It's very materialistic. It's full of desire and luxury goods.
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Being an artist is more of a mindset, a way of seeing things it is no longer so much about producing something.
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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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The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.
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