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[Cultural departments] don't care about culture. Maybe they're the furthest from the people who understand 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
People
Furthest
Departments
Cultural
Department
Maybe
Understand
Culture
Care

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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All the auction houses care about is the selling of luxury goods.
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I don't think [price] reflects if the work is good or bad.A good artist shouldn't be nervous about that.
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I have always stated I designed the stadium as a toilet seat. I don't care if this is a great cultural event or a national symbol. It has nothing to do with me. It deals with the city.
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No state or society can claim to have established human rights once and for all.
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Twitter is the people’s tool, the tool of the ordinary people, people who have no other resources.
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If there is no freedom of expression, then the beauty of life is lost. Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it’s a human need.
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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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We live in changing times, and many people experience the challenges that come with it. In the face of uncertain futures, no one will know what to expect.
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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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I am very much interested in the so-called useless object. I mean, it takes perfect craftsmanship, beautiful material carefully measured and crafted, but at the same time it’s really useless.
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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 curated this show [Shanghai Biennale ], I was by no means trying to shock people or be controversial.
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People have a tendency to become elite rather than to care about the general conditions of the society, which makes me sick. It's an unbearable condition.
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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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Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. Simply put, aside from using one's imagination - perhaps more importantly - creativity is the power to act.
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I don't belong to a working system. They only select people if you belong to one so you can be controlled.
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I think U.S. and China is a big opportunity, to be seen as partner or some kind of strategic partner maybe. But those kind of powers have a way of getting too big, then we'll have competition. And who is going to win the competition if U.S. cannot hold a strong ideology? And even the U.S. would've lost the ground to win.
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We move so fast that memory is something we can only grasp
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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.
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Because Chinese art is booming, it legitimizes this profession.
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