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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.

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
Work
Circle
Kind
Circles
Think
Daily
Thinking
Coming
Life
Experience
Art
Become
Elite
Important
Elites

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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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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The purpose of art is the fight for freedom.
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I hope that my work expresses my worldview and encourages people to exchange ideas.
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Dictatorship is a story about death of others who turn out to be you coincidently.
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Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.
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I don't believe in a sense of home.
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I will never leave China, unless I am forced to. Because China is mine. I will not leave something that belongs to me in the hands of people I do not trust.
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Because Chinese art is booming, it legitimizes this profession.
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[Being unique] gives so much privilege to people who can make it, rather than having some moral and aesthetic discussions.
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The Internet changes the structure of society all the time — this massiveness made of individuals.
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We move so fast that memory is something we can only grasp
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There are no outdoor sports as graceful as throwing stones at a dictatorship.
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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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I saw [Allen Ginsberg] more as an old man who liked poetry and who had a lot of physical and emotional problems. We liked our time together.
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What counts in the end is what the government does.
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If civil society has nobody who protects the law, then what kind of society is that?
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Had I to create a name for these times, I’d say it is the age of craziness
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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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Measuring national prestige by gold medals is like using Viagra to judge the potency of a man.
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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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