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I'm not a writer, but today I think you have to be everything. As an artist you have an obligation to let people know what is on your mind and why you're doing this.

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
Everything
Mind
Think
Thinking
People
Obligation
Writer
Artist
Today

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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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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It's really rubbish that some kind of technical learning means you will be a better person because you know this skill better.
Ai Weiwei
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All the auction houses care about is the selling of luxury goods.
Ai Weiwei
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I have people working together, doing different things: architecture, art installation, photography, publishing, and curatorial works and design.
Ai Weiwei
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It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that.
Ai Weiwei
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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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Because Great Britain has self-confidence, it doesn't need a monumental Olympics.
Ai Weiwei
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There's no single artwork I even want to mention or that I can even really think about it to have any feeling, to be proud of it.
Ai Weiwei
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The purpose of art is the fight for freedom.
Ai Weiwei
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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.
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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A small act is worth a million thoughts.
Ai Weiwei
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The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It's as simple as that.
Ai Weiwei
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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.
Ai Weiwei
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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.
Ai Weiwei
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I grew up in a desert, which has no kind of imagination.
Ai Weiwei
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So-called Chinese art and culture is under control of the Party. They exist to serve the official agenda. I call it fake art and culture.
Ai Weiwei
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Chinese citizens have never had the right to really express their opinions in the constitution it says you can, but in the real world it is more dangerous. In the west people think it's a right they're born with. Here it's a right given by the government, and one that's not really practised.
Ai Weiwei
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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.
Ai Weiwei
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My typical day is I wake up and appreciate that I can still wake up.
Ai Weiwei