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Liberty is about the right to question everything.

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
Question
Liberty
Everything
Right

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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[Cultural department] understand nothing but bureaucratic daily affairs. They don't care about culture.
Ai Weiwei
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It doesn't matter where I am - China will stay in me. I don't know how far I can still walk on this road and what is the limit.
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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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China is an old nation with a colourful history. Its booming economy has triggered an appetite and a curiosity around the world for its art and culture, one that continues to grow. I can, however, tell people that it is a show with no actor.
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The Internet has established a public sphere and developed a pressure which the government can no longer ignore.
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Of course, most luxury goods in China are for corrupted officials and their relatives. And that made China become the biggest luxury-goods market. In this kind of dictatorship, in this kind of totalitarian society, it is easy to make deals that you cannot make in a democratic society.
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Cities really are mental conditions. Beijing is a nightmare. A constant nightmare.
Ai Weiwei
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Life is much more interesting when you make a little bit of effort.
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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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For all the tough talk about China during the presidential debates, Romney and Obama evaded any mention of China's suspect human rights record, corruption, and rule of law. By not tackling these controversial topics, the candidates are protecting a strategic partnership with China at the expense of essential human values and beliefs.
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Our lives are bound by physical limits, familial ties, political conditions, and geographical restrictions. Individual freedom takes us beyond them all.
Ai Weiwei
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The whole Chinese system - not just the political leadership, the military too, the whole power structure, our education system, the whole of society - is suffering from being cut off from the free flow of information. That's why the country can't face up to open competition - unless it resorts to measures like North Korea.
Ai Weiwei
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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.
Ai Weiwei
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To give a price to an artwork, no matter how high or low, is always absurd. It's not something that can be measured by money or by certain numbers.
Ai Weiwei
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This is a very general understanding of art in China, that being an artist can make you money and turn you into a star.
Ai Weiwei
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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.
Ai Weiwei
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In the end, I think, the state's rigidity is a function of its own insecurity, its indecisiveness.
Ai Weiwei
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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
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Say what you say plainly, and then take responsibility for it.
Ai Weiwei
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At the moment about 350,000 students return to China from abroad each year - 350,000 young and educated people. I know about them because they know me and often ask me in the street if they can take a selfie with me. These folks are creative and ironic, and the government can ultimately not control what is going on in their heads.
Ai Weiwei