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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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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
Exist
Control
Official
Called
Agenda
Call
Agendas
Party
Officials
Culture
Fake
Art
Chinese
Serve

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The people who control culture in China have no culture.
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Technology is a liberation. I think the information age probably is the best thing to happen to the human race in human evolution. Now you have the equal opportunity to equip yourself through information and knowledge and express yourself as an independent mind.
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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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Because Chinese art is booming, it legitimizes this profession.
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Individual that means he has his own special way to communicate, which creates the form of him. In the information age, this expression and communication has become so different.
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The museums used to be exhibition halls for government propaganda, and now every city wants to build a museum. A few thousand are to be built in the next few years, all using taxpayer money. But there is no system, no research, no content, no good programs, no good managers.
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I'm always interested in people who are not orientated in art circles to become part of it.
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Life is much more interesting when you make a little bit of effort.
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Everyone wants an iPhone, but it would be impossible to design an iPhone in China because it's not a product it's an understanding of human nature.
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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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Only with the Internet can a peasant I have never met hear my voice and I can learn what's on his mind. A fairy tale has come true.
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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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This world should be much more open and should be much more free, so the young people would have the chance to exercise the quality of their lives.
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The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay.
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My work is always a ready-made... cultural, political, or social, and also it could be art - to make people re-look at what we have done, its original position, to create new possibilities.
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If Shakespeare were alive today, he might be writing on Twitter.
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You need a purpose to express yourself, but that expression is its own purpose.
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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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In a society that restricts individual freedoms and violates human rights, anything that calls itself creative or independent is a pretence. It is impossible for a totalitarian society to create anything with passion and imagination.
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