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I always want people to be confused, to be shocked or realize something later.

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
Confused
Later
Realize
Realizing
Something
Always
People
Shocked
Shock

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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Beijing is constructing a 100,000 m2 modern art museum, yet it will not feature any of my work.
Ai Weiwei
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People have a tendency to become elite rather than to care about the general conditions of the society, which makes me sick. It's an unbearable condition.
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The so-called culture nowadays is only a fake one with a superficial front. It is an empty lie.
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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.
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The media is the message. It carries the full intention and the meaning. Once you change it...it's very disturbing.
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My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall.
Ai Weiwei
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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.
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You need a purpose to express yourself, but that expression is its own purpose.
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In the end, I think, the state's rigidity is a function of its own insecurity, its indecisiveness.
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Only with the Internet can a peasant I have never met hear my voice and I can learn what's on his mind. A fairy tale has come true.
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Any design, any city, any kind of craziness or tragedy, it all comes from a long time of preparation.
Ai Weiwei
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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.
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I spend a lot of time talking to journalists.
Ai Weiwei
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No matter what happens, nothing can prevent the historical process by which society demands freedom and democracy.
Ai Weiwei
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I'm not a writer, but today I think you have to be everything. As an artist you have an obligation to let people know what is on your mind and why you're doing this.
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By participating in the society we live in, we understand our conditions and the way we relate to the world.
Ai Weiwei
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For years, I refused to go to any openings, not even my own.
Ai Weiwei
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Somehow, we [ Tan Dun and director Chen Kaige] were all privileged at the time we could be outside of China. But at the moment, we had no sense of what the future was going to be like.
Ai Weiwei
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Imagine one day, the hateful world around you collapses. And it is your attitude, words and actions that put an end to it. Will you be excited?
Ai Weiwei
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When I first got into the first-year study after the Cultural Revolution, got into the same school with this group, I wasn't conscious of the so-called Fifth Generation. I didn't like that kind of study condition because there's no real, true education there.
Ai Weiwei