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I was an illegal alien for many, many years. I couldn't move. If I moved I could not even get a visa back.

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
Moving
Back
Visa
Many
Alien
Even
Aliens
Years
Illegal
Moved
Couldn
Move

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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My musician friends are banned from playing concerts in China because they share the same views as I do. My name cannot appear on the web, because my opinion is different from the Party.
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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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What counts in the end is what the government does.
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I think it’s a responsibility for any artist to protect freedom of expression and to use any way to extend this power.
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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.
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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.
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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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Life is much more interesting when you make a little bit of effort.
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Overturning police cars is a super-intense workout. It’s probably the only sport I enjoy.
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We are living in a popular culture where everything is overexposed.
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I see the Beijing National Stadium as an architectural project. I accepted Herzog and De Meuron's invitation to collaborate on the design, and our proposal won the competition. From beginning to end, I stayed with the project. I am committed to fostering relationships between a city and its architecture.
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To experience poetry is to see over and above reality. It is to discover that which is beyond the physical, to experience another life and another level of feeling. It is to wonder about the world, to understand the nature of people and, most importantly, to be shared with another, old or young, known or unknown.
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If people are being abused or even killed during an arrest, this is highly disturbing.
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My situation gives me certain ideas about beauty or the excitement of life, but that doesn't mean other people can necessarily appreciate it.
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Many people I know - writers, poets - they have all been sentenced not once but sometimes three times after they come out. They serve five or six years, come out another time, and then nine years. Come out again, 12 years. Only because they have a different opinion. They are innocent people, they have beautiful minds, beautiful hearts.
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I don't believe in the so-called Olympic spirit. I speak from personal experience. When China hosted the Games, it failed to include the people. The event was constructed without regard for their joy.
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I will never leave China, unless I am forced to. Because China is mine. I will not leave something that belongs to me in the hands of people I do not trust.
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No matter what happens, nothing can prevent the historical process by which society demands freedom and democracy.
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In the end, I think, the state's rigidity is a function of its own insecurity, its indecisiveness.
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Just look at the statistics: Each university has tens of thousands of applications for students who want to be in art school, but they can only accept a few hundred.
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