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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.

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
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Somehow
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China
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More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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I think it's more important to show your work to the public.
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Art needs to stand for something.
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New York is a city where you're so alone, you're an individual, you can disappear. You can make something happen. But it's very different to make something happen in the art world.
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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 always want to design a frame that’s open to everyone. I don’t see art as a secret code.
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For years, I refused to go to any openings, not even my own.
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The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It's as simple as that.
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To call yourself a Chinese artist or woman artist or African artist reflects a certain kind of condition. To me, that is not necessary.
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Cities really are mental conditions. Beijing is a nightmare. A constant nightmare.
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Destroy or build. Crazy or noncrazy. I'm not nostalgic about the old city. I don't enjoy it that much.
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I think art is a very important weapon to achieve human freedom
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To give a price to an artwork, no matter how high or low, is always absurd. It's not something that can be measured by money or by certain numbers.
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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 believe [the architecture firm] Herzog and de Meuron and our collaboration made the product the best it could be.
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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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Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it. I don’t feel that much anger. I equally have a lot of joy.
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The tragic reality of today is reflected in the true plight of our spiritual existence. We are spineless and cannot stand straight.
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We see the tendency in the world to criticise democracy and sometimes even to say that authoritarian countries like China are more efficient. That is very short-sighted. China looks efficient only because it can sacrifice most people's rights. This is not something the west should be happy about.
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If it's possible, I will have some noodles in the morning and start talking to people, start to think about a few things in my head - the project or a few ideas which are not finished or if there are possible directions and what will lead into another game. It's always like setting up some kind of game you can continuously play.
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Beijing is constructing a 100,000 m2 modern art museum, yet it will not feature any of my work.
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