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I came back [to Beijing ] because that's the only time I had an excuse to come back, or otherwise I would never have a reason to come 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
Back
Reason
Come
Never
Would
Beijing
Time
Excuse
Otherwise
Came

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Choices after waking up: To be true or to lie? To take action or be brainwashed? To be free or be jailed?
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If a society cannot even support somebody like me, then people ask: Who is under protection then? That's why there is such support for me. It is not because I am so beautiful or I am so charming. People feel: This guy is fighting for us.
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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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I don't personally feel any association with a kind of culture related to state, or culture related to power, which I think is always disgusting.
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I don't think China should care if this crazy old guy should have a show here or not. You have so many museums in the West, and so many shows, you need somebody to show the work, otherwise it's empty.
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I think the pearls - one is a necklace, and another you have five hundred pounds of pearls, which may be one million pearls in a bowl - really show a kind of [society] condition.
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The media is the message. It carries the full intention and the meaning. Once you change it...it's very disturbing.
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China has not established the rule of law and if there is a power above the law there is no social justice. Everybody can be subjected to harm. I'm just a citizen: my life is equal in value to any other. But I'm thankful that when I lost my freedom so many people shared feelings and put such touching effort into helping me.
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Twitter is most suitable for me. In the Chinese language, 140 characters is a novella.
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No state or society can claim to have established human rights once and for all.
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We should use this public sphere and redefine - beyond China's borders - what a government is allowed to do, where its powers end and where the realm of a citizen's privacy begins.
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If there's the right condition, I always want to express the concept or ideas in a very independent way.
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