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To the media, I have become a symbolic figure, critical of China. According to the government, I am a dangerous threat.

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
Become
According
Government
Critical
China
Threat
Figure
Figures
Dangerous
Media
Symbolic

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Because Chinese art is booming, it legitimizes this profession.
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I don't think China has professional museums - not in the past, present, or near future.
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I spend a lot of time talking to journalists.
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Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. Simply put, aside from using one's imagination - perhaps more importantly - creativity is the power to act.
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Stupidity can win for a moment, but it can never really succeed because the nature of humans is to seek freedom. Rulers can delay that freedom, but they cannot stop it.
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I see the Beijing National Stadium as an architectural project. I accepted Herzog and De Meuron's invitation to collaborate on the design, and our proposal won the competition. From beginning to end, I stayed with the project. I am committed to fostering relationships between a city and its architecture.
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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.
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You only have temporary curiosity, amusement, and challenges, but that does not necessarily mean you are really convinced that it's necessary or that it's not even worth to do it. It's just a way you have to set up some kind of activities to follow your instincts or your curiosities.
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Even if there have been setbacks during these past years, China is changing. China's society is opening.
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I don't believe in the so-called Olympic spirit. I speak from personal experience. When China hosted the Games, it failed to include the people. The event was constructed without regard for their joy.
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It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that.
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Everything is art. Everything is politics.
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This so-called fame or being better off doesn't really attract me at all.
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Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
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I came back [to Beijing ] because that's the only time I had an excuse to come back, or otherwise I would never have a reason to come back.
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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.
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Everyone of us is a potential convict.
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Once you've tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country.
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I think by shattering it we can create a new form, a new way to look at what is valuable — how we decide what is valuable.
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After I came back [to China], there was still a long period of time when I felt I had nothing to do.
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