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I will never leave China, unless I am forced to. Because China is mine. I will not leave something that belongs to me in the hands of people I do not trust.

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
People
Mines
Mine
Unless
Trust
Leave
Patriotism
Hands
Belongs
Something
Forced
Never
China

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Hopefully, other successes aren't like me. It carries much more meaning to other people my success story is irrelevant. It doesn't make any sense.
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I never had a sense of home.
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New York was not a romantic city at [80th]. Nobody knows who you are and you don't have to care about anybody else. It's a very cold city, I should say.
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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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Your own acts tell the world who you are and what kind of society you think it should be.
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The world is sphere, has no East or West.
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I don't think there is a distinct change, because in the West I'm not a person who can serve his purpose.
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The purpose of art is the fight for freedom.
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My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression. I don’t think anybody can separate art from politics. The intention to separate [the two] is itself a very political intention.
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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.
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China partially wants to become part of the world. By hosting the Olympics and the Expo, they made a big effort to tell people: Look, we are the same. They want to be accepted by the international community.
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Warhol influenced me because of his writing. If I had never read his writings and interviews, I would never have understood his work.
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As a total activity - I practice curating, art, architecture, writing, and publishing all together. I still act as a living creature.
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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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I think it's more important to show your work to the public.
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The rest of the world understands little about China's changes and the possibilities and crises that come with them.
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I think Allen [Ginsberg] was a person who's like a child.
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Many people are going to use [Beijing National Stadium], which makes it more meaningful. If we don't design it, somebody else has to design it.
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Today, we jump into this globalization of the economy and the internet age.
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Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.
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