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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

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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Of course, most luxury goods in China are for corrupted officials and their relatives. And that made China become the biggest luxury-goods market. In this kind of dictatorship, in this kind of totalitarian society, it is easy to make deals that you cannot make in a democratic society.
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Freedom of speech implies the world isn’t defined. It is meaningful when people are allowed to see the world their way.
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I don't think there is a distinct change, because in the West I'm not a person who can serve his purpose.
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Cities really are mental conditions. Beijing is a nightmare. A constant nightmare.
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I think we cannot have a double standard. We cannot see our art as different from the reality. We cannot use two different sets of judgment.
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The so-called culture nowadays is only a fake one with a superficial front. It is an empty lie.
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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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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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Now many enterprises are made by individuals, so the attitude has started to change.
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Everyone of us is a potential convict.
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If my art has nothing to do with people's pain and sorrow, what is 'art' for?
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I never had a sense of home.
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Life is much more interesting when you make a little bit of effort.
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What counts in the end is what the government does.
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I think art certainly is the vehicle for us to develop any new ideas, to be creative, to extend our imagination, to change the current conditions.
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Because Chinese art is booming, it legitimizes this profession.
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I'm not nostalgic about the old city. I don't enjoy it that much. It was just a city with one emperor and the rest of them just rats or meaningless people.
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Expressing oneself is like a drug. I'm so addicted to it.
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This world should be much more open and should be much more free, so the young people would have the chance to exercise the quality of their lives.
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Being an artist is more of a mindset, a way of seeing things it is no longer so much about producing something.
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