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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
Something
Always
People
Shocked
Shock
Confused
Later
Realize
Realizing

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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Through my work and ways of expression, I strive to engage in dialogue with the society that I am living in.
Ai Weiwei
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Everyone wants an iPhone, but it would be impossible to design an iPhone in China because it's not a product it's an understanding of human nature.
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The world is sphere, has no East or West.
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I never saw [Allen Ginsberg] as some kind of crazy figure.
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I don't think I was very structured in that society and I don't really believe in personal success, which most Americans believe in.
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Without freedom of speech, there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.
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I don't think my father had a direct influence on me, but I do think, more or less, I was influenced by his independent individualism. And the kind of condition he had when he was in this society - the kind of mistreatment society gave him.
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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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If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future.
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I often feel more disgust than pride about this kind of success. So there's no regret whatsoever.
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We are living in a popular culture where everything is overexposed.
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The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay.
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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.
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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.
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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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I believe [the architecture firm] Herzog and de Meuron and our collaboration made the product the best it could be.
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No state or society can claim to have established human rights once and for all.
Ai Weiwei
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Choices after waking up: To be true or to lie? To take action or be brainwashed? To be free or be jailed?
Ai Weiwei
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I think I'm just a traveler. When you walk across a river and there's no bridge, you build one. I'm used to having to deal with Chinese Communist ideology - it's not really an ideology, but a method of control. But China's problems are not just China's problems - they're human problems. Humanity has always worked better when you see it as one.
Ai Weiwei
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Even if there have been setbacks during these past years, China is changing. China's society is opening.
Ai Weiwei