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Cities really are mental conditions. Beijing is a nightmare. A constant nightmare.

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
Beijing
Nightmare
Mental
Constant
Conditions
Cities
Really

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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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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Overturning police cars is a super-intense workout. It’s probably the only sport I enjoy.
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I don't think my father had a direct influence on me, but I do think, more or less, I was influenced by his independent individualism. And the kind of condition he had when he was in this society - the kind of mistreatment society gave him.
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I have to find a place for my own. I have to search for my own happiness.
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Widespread state control over art and culture has left no room for freedom of expression in the country. For more than 60 years, anyone with a dissenting opinion has been suppressed. Chinese art is merely a product: it avoids any meaningful engagement. There is no larger context. Its only purpose is to charm viewers with its ambiguity.
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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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Art needs to stand for something.
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I curated this show [Shanghai Biennale ], I was by no means trying to shock people or be controversial.
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As a person, I was born to give out my opinions. By giving out my opinions, I realize who I am. As long as I can communicate, I'm not so lonely. If I cannot travel, or do art, or have company, if they take away all my belongings, it doesn't matter at all.
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I'm not nostalgic about the old city. I don't enjoy it that much. It was just a city with one emperor and the rest of them just rats or meaningless people.
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The people who control culture in China have no culture.
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Twitter is the people’s tool, the tool of the ordinary people, people who have no other resources.
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Mass production is nothing new. Weren't cathedrals built through mass production? The pyramids?... Paintings can be painted with the left hand, the right hand, someone else's hand, or many people's hands. The scale of production is irrelevant to its content.
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The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It's as simple as that.
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I also doubt a man can give really clear reasons for anything.
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Stupidity can win for a moment, but it can never really succeed because the nature of humans is to seek freedom. Rulers can delay that freedom, but they cannot stop it.
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We should use this public sphere and redefine - beyond China's borders - what a government is allowed to do, where its powers end and where the realm of a citizen's privacy begins.
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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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To the media, I have become a symbolic figure, critical of China. According to the government, I am a dangerous threat.
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Everyone wants an iPhone, but it would be impossible to design an iPhone in China because it's not a product it's an understanding of human nature.
Ai Weiwei