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If you just turn to your paper or television each day, there are thousands of stories that are much more shocking than the gallery artworks.

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
Turn
Turns
Artworks
Stories
Artwork
Much
Gallery
Shocking
Thousands
Paper
Television

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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We are living in a popular culture where everything is overexposed.
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Dont retreat. Retweet!
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Art needs to stand for something.
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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 call on people to be 'obsessed citizens,' forever questioning and asking for accountability. That's the only chance we have today of a healthy and happy life.
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Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
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Modern Chinese culture is weak and lackluster.
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Growing up, my family was an enemy of the state. I have experienced more disappointment than joy, much more sad stories or desperate conditions.
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Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.
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In the '80s, you couldn't walk in the neighborhood without looking back to see if anyone was following you. You had your key in your hand before you got to your apartment and you'd rush in so you didn't have to stop.
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What is important is that we actively express our thoughts and wishes, in every realm that we can access.
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Somehow, we [ Tan Dun and director Chen Kaige] were all privileged at the time we could be outside of China. But at the moment, we had no sense of what the future was going to be like.
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To survive, China had to open up to the West. It could not survive otherwise. This was after many millions have died of hunger in a country that was like North Korea is today. Once we became part of global competition, we had to agree to some rules. It's painful, but we had to. Otherwise there was no way to survive.
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I think you can give meaning to any condition you can be poor or unsuccessful or be so-called successful. But I don't think that it would give an individual human being a better condition.
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...photographs are facts, but not necessarily true... The present always surpasses the past, and the future will not care about today.
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The Internet changes the structure of society all the time — this massiveness made of individuals.
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Freedom of expression is a very essential condition for me to make any art. Also, it is an essential value for my life. I have to protect this right and also to fight for the possibility.
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I can still wake up the next day and feel that there's something that needs to be done, which always amuses me.
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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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In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want — not only you, your whole family and all people like you.
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