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New York was not a romantic city at [80th]. Nobody knows who you are and you don't have to care about anybody else. It's a very cold city, I should say.
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
Cities
Else
Romantic
Care
York
Anybody
City
Nobody
Cold
More quotes by Ai Weiwei
The rest of the world understands little about China's changes and the possibilities and crises that come with them.
Ai Weiwei
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.
Ai Weiwei
Even if there have been setbacks during these past years, China is changing. China's society is opening.
Ai Weiwei
[Cultural department] understand nothing but bureaucratic daily affairs. They don't care about culture.
Ai Weiwei
It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that.
Ai Weiwei
Creativity is part of human nature. It can only be untaught.
Ai Weiwei
We grew up in a very material-lacking socialist society, but today China is a capitalist society. It's very materialistic. It's full of desire and luxury goods.
Ai Weiwei
I don’t want the next generation to fight the same fight as I did.
Ai Weiwei
All movies in China are censored. Out of 600 movies produced in China, only 60 are allowed to show in theatres.
Ai Weiwei
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.
Ai Weiwei
The museums used to be exhibition halls for government propaganda, and now every city wants to build a museum. A few thousand are to be built in the next few years, all using taxpayer money. But there is no system, no research, no content, no good programs, no good managers.
Ai Weiwei
Chinese citizens have never had the right to really express their opinions in the constitution it says you can, but in the real world it is more dangerous. In the west people think it's a right they're born with. Here it's a right given by the government, and one that's not really practised.
Ai Weiwei
Today, the general masses in this society are in this political-social condition that really encourages people to become rich and become a star and be unique.
Ai Weiwei
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.
Ai Weiwei
I also have to speak out for people around me who are afraid, who think it is not worth it or who have totally given up hope. So I want to set an example: you can do it and this is OK, to speak out.
Ai Weiwei
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
The IT people who have made such an effort to know and understand computer technology. They are frustrated that you cannot use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in China. They are the first to recognize that the situation is terrible.
Ai Weiwei
Artists are the worst [people]. They are selfish, self-centred they don't care what happens.
Ai Weiwei
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.
Ai Weiwei
You only have temporary curiosity, amusement, and challenges, but that does not necessarily mean you are really convinced that it's necessary or that it's not even worth to do it. It's just a way you have to set up some kind of activities to follow your instincts or your curiosities.
Ai Weiwei