Quote

My image of what a city should be - the super-rich and all the poor and desperate and the people who have some kind of a desire. It's a surviving game, people trying to survive on many different levels.

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
Different
Levels
Trying
Cities
Kind
Game
Surviving
People
Rich
Super
Games
Desperate
Poor
Survive
Desire
Image
Many
City

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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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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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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I think it’s a responsibility for any artist to protect freedom of expression and to use any way to extend this power.
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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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Widespread state control over art and culture has left no room for freedom of expression in the country. For more than 60 years, anyone with a dissenting opinion has been suppressed. Chinese art is merely a product: it avoids any meaningful engagement. There is no larger context. Its only purpose is to charm viewers with its ambiguity.
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A society is healthy only when it allows its members to discuss their thoughts openly. This is also the only way that a society can gather consensus, let everyone express his or her wish, and foster creativity.
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I don't personally feel any association with a kind of culture related to state, or culture related to power, which I think is always disgusting.
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The demand for individual freedom leads us to different realms, and it enables us to participate in social events.
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I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.
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I'm not nostalgic about the old city. I don't enjoy it that much. It was just a city with one emperor and the rest of them just rats or meaningless people.
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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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I call on people to be 'obsessed citizens,' forever questioning and asking for accountability. That's the only chance we have today of a healthy and happy life.
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The people who control culture in China have no culture.
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For artists and intellectuals today, what is most needed is to be clear about social responsibility, because that is what most people automatically give up. Just to protect yourself as an individual is very political. You don't have to march on Tiananmen, but you do have to be clear-minded, to find your own means of expression.
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When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That's dangerous for human development.
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Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
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Each year, more people want to become artists.
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Twitter is most suitable for me. In the Chinese language, 140 characters is a novella.
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I spend a lot of time talking to journalists.
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This week, the world gathers in Beijing for the 2008 Olympic games. This is the extraordinary moment China has been dreaming of for 100 years. People have been longing for this moment, because it symbolises a turning point in China's relationship with the outside world.
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