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This is a very general understanding of art in China, that being an artist can make you money and turn you into a star.

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
Stars
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Artist
Art
Star
Money
China
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More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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As a total activity - I practice curating, art, architecture, writing, and publishing all together. I still act as a living creature.
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What counts in the end is what the government does.
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I don’t want the next generation to fight the same fight as I did.
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Maybe [success] is because I'm in China and I'm more open. Maybe it's my independent behavior, or because I participated in certain projects. I have no idea.
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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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If a master, a wise and experienced man, wields a great weapon, that's beautiful. He can serve peace with it. But if someone's emotions are imbalanced, even if he has the best equipment, he will still mean danger. Modern technology requires calm. You shouldn't trust anyone with a car who has no knowledge about vehicles or roads.
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I grew up in a desert, which has no kind of imagination.
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Behind every political deal in this country, the first casualties are always the ordinary people, who are barely treated as human.
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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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Being an artist is more of a mindset, a way of seeing things it is no longer so much about producing something.
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Anyone fighting for freedom does not want to totally lose their freedom.
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In China, we don't have any contemporary art museums. Until a few years ago, we didn't even have a gallery.
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Creativity is the power to act.
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Otherwise, I think the building can be bigger, larger, and the city can be much more crazy. The problem is the government structure is so deadly stupid, not really solving problems but creating a lot of problems itself every day.
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After I came back [to China], there was still a long period of time when I felt I had nothing to do.
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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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The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.
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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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At the moment about 350,000 students return to China from abroad each year - 350,000 young and educated people. I know about them because they know me and often ask me in the street if they can take a selfie with me. These folks are creative and ironic, and the government can ultimately not control what is going on in their heads.
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It [success] is really by mistake.
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