Quote

The tragic reality of today is reflected in the true plight of our spiritual existence. We are spineless and cannot stand straight.

Ai Weiwei

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Existence
Spiritual
True
Spineless
Reality
Plight
Cannot
Reflected
Today
Tragic
Straight
Stand

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

Image
I think it’s a responsibility for any artist to protect freedom of expression and to use any way to extend this power.
Ai Weiwei
Image
If you just turn to your paper or television each day, there are thousands of stories that are much more shocking than the gallery artworks.
Ai Weiwei
Image
New York is a city where you're so alone, you're an individual, you can disappear. You can make something happen. But it's very different to make something happen in the art world.
Ai Weiwei
Image
Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
Ai Weiwei
Image
I was an illegal alien for many, many years. I couldn't move. If I moved I could not even get a visa back.
Ai Weiwei
Image
I never saw [Allen Ginsberg] as some kind of crazy figure.
Ai Weiwei
Image
Just look at the statistics: Each university has tens of thousands of applications for students who want to be in art school, but they can only accept a few hundred.
Ai Weiwei
Image
I think China is laughing about the results of the presidential elections. China, Russia, they all laugh about it. They see how dramatic U.S. has to be put this kind of shame on its own - cannot handle the situation. Or show such a difficulty with this liberal ideas. Men or women created equal. And to defend those very essential ideas.
Ai Weiwei
Image
Freedom of speech implies the world isn’t defined. It is meaningful when people are allowed to see the world their way.
Ai Weiwei
Image
Chinese government is very clearly losing power in every aspect, but trying to fix up all the problems or potential problems.
Ai Weiwei
Image
Creativity is part of human nature. It can only be untaught.
Ai Weiwei
Image
It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that.
Ai Weiwei
Image
My work is always a ready-made... cultural, political, or social, and also it could be art - to make people re-look at what we have done, its original position, to create new possibilities.
Ai Weiwei
Image
China spends a lot of resources and effort on gaining soft power over culture. The hope is that it can be the last lifeline for the Party's survival. Obviously, the idea will fail.
Ai Weiwei
Image
In an environment without public platform nor protection, the individual is the most powerful and most responsible.
Ai Weiwei
Image
The practice of photography is no longer a means for recording reality. Instead, it has become reality itself
Ai Weiwei
Image
We are living in a popular culture where everything is overexposed.
Ai Weiwei
Image
If a society cannot even support somebody like me, then people ask: Who is under protection then? That's why there is such support for me. It is not because I am so beautiful or I am so charming. People feel: This guy is fighting for us.
Ai Weiwei
Image
If there is no free speech, every single life has lived in vain
Ai Weiwei
Image
Any politician who respects China's government should tell it openly what is in his heart. It is disrespectful to keep quiet about such issues - both vis-a-vis the government and the people concerned.
Ai Weiwei