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China spends a lot of resources and effort on gaining soft power over culture. The hope is that it can be the last lifeline for the Party's survival. Obviously, the idea will fail.

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
Ideas
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Spends
Party
Soft
Lasts
Obviously
Last
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Fail
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China
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Culture
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Failing
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More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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When I first got into the first-year study after the Cultural Revolution, got into the same school with this group, I wasn't conscious of the so-called Fifth Generation. I didn't like that kind of study condition because there's no real, true education there.
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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.
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You can never know what is and what is not powerful, but you can always find out what the powerful people are scared of. A state like China looks so powerful, but they are so scared of the Internet, so the Internet is more powerful than them.
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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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Everything is selected by the central government without good judgment or an understanding of culture to make it really safe. They will become nobody to maintain their power and be raised to the next higher level.
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The so-called culture nowadays is only a fake one with a superficial front. It is an empty lie.
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Politics is like air and water. And you know if there is bad politics. Everyone is polluted. Everyone is unhealthy. See the people walking on the street: how they act.
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I always want to design a frame that’s open to everyone. I don’t see art as a secret code.
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If Shakespeare were alive today, he might be writing on Twitter.
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Artists are the worst [people]. They are selfish, self-centred they don't care what happens.
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When you have strict censorship of the internet, young students cannot receive a full education. Their view of the world is imbalanced. There can be no true discussion of the issues.
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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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A historical property has morals and ethics of the society that created it and it can be revived. What I mean is that we can discover new possibilities from the process of dismantling, transforming, and recreating.
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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.
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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.
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Art is always about overcoming obstacles between the inner condition and the skill for expression.
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Even if I have hundreds of things to do, the disconnected feeling is still there because it is very hard to find a real purpose of life.
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I remember one little rainy day I went searching for this apartment and I saw so many people standing on a stoop on the corner in the rain. Later I realized, that was drug traffic. They were all buying drugs.
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Your own acts tell the world who you are and what kind of society you think it should be.
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There are no outdoor sports as graceful as throwing stones at a dictatorship.
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