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The Internet changes the structure of society all the time — this massiveness made of individuals.
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
Individual
Made
Time
Individuals
Structure
Changes
Internet
Society
More quotes by Ai Weiwei
China has not established the rule of law and if there is a power above the law there is no social justice. Everybody can be subjected to harm. I'm just a citizen: my life is equal in value to any other. But I'm thankful that when I lost my freedom so many people shared feelings and put such touching effort into helping me.
Ai Weiwei
By participating in the society we live in, we understand our conditions and the way we relate to the world.
Ai Weiwei
Man has a tendency to try to give clear reasons to be rational, but often you can see how all those reasons are not convincing and turn out to be a big nonsense.
Ai Weiwei
Recently I danced in a video spoof of the song 'Gangnam Style,' and it was quickly banned across multiple Chinese online video platforms. But the story still traveled all over the world, carried in hundreds of international media reports.
Ai Weiwei
The world is not changing if you don’t shoulder the burden of responsibility.
Ai Weiwei
I remember one little rainy day I went searching for this apartment and I saw so many people standing on a stoop on the corner in the rain. Later I realized, that was drug traffic. They were all buying drugs.
Ai Weiwei
I never had a sense of home.
Ai Weiwei
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.
Ai Weiwei
Art should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don't think art is elite or mysterious.
Ai Weiwei
To survive, China had to open up to the West. It could not survive otherwise. This was after many millions have died of hunger in a country that was like North Korea is today. Once we became part of global competition, we had to agree to some rules. It's painful, but we had to. Otherwise there was no way to survive.
Ai Weiwei
Selling high or low doesn't mean anything. It has to do purely with the market.
Ai Weiwei
What is important is that we actively express our thoughts and wishes, in every realm that we can access.
Ai Weiwei
Now many enterprises are made by individuals, so the attitude has started to change.
Ai Weiwei
The United States is a melting pot. Like John F. Kennedy said, it's a nation of immigrants. But Donald Trump wants to build a fence that clearly makes the statement: You and I are divided. We're different, and you're dangerous. That kind of thinking stops human, civilized evolution. It's dangerous to create that kind of tension.
Ai Weiwei
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.
Ai Weiwei
Many people I know - writers, poets - they have all been sentenced not once but sometimes three times after they come out. They serve five or six years, come out another time, and then nine years. Come out again, 12 years. Only because they have a different opinion. They are innocent people, they have beautiful minds, beautiful hearts.
Ai Weiwei
I came back [to Beijing ] because that's the only time I had an excuse to come back, or otherwise I would never have a reason to come back.
Ai Weiwei
For artists and intellectuals today, what is most needed is to be clear about social responsibility, because that is what most people automatically give up. Just to protect yourself as an individual is very political. You don't have to march on Tiananmen, but you do have to be clear-minded, to find your own means of expression.
Ai Weiwei
[Being unique] gives so much privilege to people who can make it, rather than having some moral and aesthetic discussions.
Ai Weiwei
A historical property has morals and ethics of the society that created it and it can be revived. What I mean is that we can discover new possibilities from the process of dismantling, transforming, and recreating.
Ai Weiwei
