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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.

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
Society
Family
Tell
Power
Whole
Negotiation
Time
Crush
Like
Discussion
People
Except

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For years, I refused to go to any openings, not even my own.
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My image of what a city should be - the super-rich and all the poor and desperate and the people who have some kind of a desire. It's a surviving game, people trying to survive on many different levels.
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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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The practice of photography is no longer a means for recording reality. Instead, it has become reality itself
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My musician friends are banned from playing concerts in China because they share the same views as I do. My name cannot appear on the web, because my opinion is different from the Party.
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[Museums] all belongs to the cultural department, which is the biggest cultural department in the world.
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I think it’s a responsibility for any artist to protect freedom of expression and to use any way to extend this power.
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A nation that has no music and no fairytales is a tragedy.
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Choices after waking up: To be true or to lie? To take action or be brainwashed? To be free or be jailed?
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Any design, any city, any kind of craziness or tragedy, it all comes from a long time of preparation.
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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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Society becomes very destructive.
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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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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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The purpose of art is the fight for freedom.
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I don't personally feel any association with a kind of culture related to state, or culture related to power, which I think is always disgusting.
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No state or society can claim to have established human rights once and for all.
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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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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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The Internet changes the structure of society all the time — this massiveness made of individuals.
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