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New York is a city where you're so alone, you're an individual, you can disappear. You can make something happen. But it's very different to make something happen in the art world.

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
World
Happen
Alone
Individual
Art
Happens
Disappear
Different
York
Something
City
Make
Cities

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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Art should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don't think art is elite or mysterious.
Ai Weiwei
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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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As a human being, member of society, you must clearly state your mind. It's a responsibility. It is the way you identify yourself otherwise you don't know who you are and why you are here.
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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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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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I loved New York — every inch of it. It was a little bit scary at that time, but still, the excitement was so strong — visually and intellectually. It was like a monster.
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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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We grew up in a very material-lacking socialist society, but today China is a capitalist society. It's very materialistic. It's full of desire and luxury goods.
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We move so fast that memory is something we can only grasp
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I curated this show [Shanghai Biennale ], I was by no means trying to shock people or be controversial.
Ai Weiwei
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If you just turn to your paper or television each day, there are thousands of stories that are much more shocking than the gallery artworks.
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I never regret anything.
Ai Weiwei
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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.
Ai Weiwei
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Of course, people will call you an old artist or young artist, which is just a character of you. But personally, I don't think my work and my understanding of art is so much related to being Chinese, but the character of that. Maybe it's beyond my own consciousness.
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I want people to see their own power.
Ai Weiwei
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Many people I know - writers, poets - they have all been sentenced not once but sometimes three times after they come out. They serve five or six years, come out another time, and then nine years. Come out again, 12 years. Only because they have a different opinion. They are innocent people, they have beautiful minds, beautiful hearts.
Ai Weiwei
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The United States is a melting pot. Like John F. Kennedy said, it's a nation of immigrants. But Donald Trump wants to build a fence that clearly makes the statement: You and I are divided. We're different, and you're dangerous. That kind of thinking stops human, civilized evolution. It's dangerous to create that kind of tension.
Ai Weiwei
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What counts in the end is what the government does.
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For all the tough talk about China during the presidential debates, Romney and Obama evaded any mention of China's suspect human rights record, corruption, and rule of law. By not tackling these controversial topics, the candidates are protecting a strategic partnership with China at the expense of essential human values and beliefs.
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If Shakespeare were alive today, he might be writing on Twitter.
Ai Weiwei