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You see so many people doing quite nice and respectful work, but nobody like Warhol. Warhol is outstanding. I think he has a value that is far from fully understood. He's very special for younger generations.

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
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More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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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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If my art has nothing to do with people's pain and sorrow, what is 'art' for?
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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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Any politician who respects China's government should tell it openly what is in his heart. It is disrespectful to keep quiet about such issues - both vis-a-vis the government and the people concerned.
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My mother became much older when I came out (ed's note: of detention). She had problems with her hearing and high blood pressure. But they still support me.
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I never had secure, belonging feelings with this society [in China].
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If there is no freedom of expression, then the beauty of life is lost. Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it’s a human need.
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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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I can still wake up the next day and feel that there's something that needs to be done, which always amuses me.
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I think of art as coming from daily life, daily experience. I think it's very important not to have it become work for some kind of elite circle.
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To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It's a very complicated process to do large projects. You start to see the society, how it functions, how it works. Then you have a lot of criticism about how it works.
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I want people to see their own power.
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No outdoor sports can be more elegant than throwing stones at autocracy no melees can be more exciting than those in cyberspace.
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China partially wants to become part of the world. By hosting the Olympics and the Expo, they made a big effort to tell people: Look, we are the same. They want to be accepted by the international community.
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I don’t want the next generation to fight the same fight as I did.
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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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China and the U.S. are two societies with very different attitudes towards opinion and criticism. In China, I am constantly under surveillance. Even my slightest, most innocuous move can - and often is - censored by Chinese authorities.
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We see the tendency in the world to criticise democracy and sometimes even to say that authoritarian countries like China are more efficient. That is very short-sighted. China looks efficient only because it can sacrifice most people's rights. This is not something the west should be happy about.
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A nation that has no music and no fairytales is a tragedy.
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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.
Ai Weiwei