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I suddenly realized I was getting ten opening notes a day on my mobile phone, more than when I was in New York. But this is China, where nothing is surprising.

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
Realized
Notes
Ten
Mobile
China
Surprising
York
Phone
Getting
Phones
Nothing
Opening
Suddenly

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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You need a purpose to express yourself, but that expression is its own purpose.
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That's why I always question this sense. The feeling of home really requires a lot of trust. It requires you to identify with it, which I always find myself very contradictory to.
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Warhol came from an ordinary family and he had a profound understanding about capitalism and material culture. He was probably one of the few Western artists - or artists from the United States - that could be considered a true product of his time and brought out that kind of spirit of the culture.
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Chinese government is very clearly losing power in every aspect, but trying to fix up all the problems or potential problems.
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I always want people to be confused, to be shocked or realize something later.
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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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This so-called contemporary art is not a form, but a philosophy of society.
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I don't like China. Even today, I still feel I have no emotional relations with this place.
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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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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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The United States is a melting pot. Like John F. Kennedy said, it's a nation of immigrants. But Donald Trump wants to build a fence that clearly makes the statement: You and I are divided. We're different, and you're dangerous. That kind of thinking stops human, civilized evolution. It's dangerous to create that kind of tension.
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Art should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don't think art is elite or mysterious.
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The [China] government has improved in the last years. Of course, the structure is still the same there's still a one-party system and strong censorship.
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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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My angst and my insecurity reflect the state's angst and insecurity. The state is scared too.
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If there's the right condition, I always want to express the concept or ideas in a very independent way.
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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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Had I to create a name for these times, I’d say it is the age of craziness
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I never had a sense of home.
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I don’t want the next generation to fight the same fight as I did.
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