Quote

I spend a lot of time talking to journalists.

Ai Weiwei

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Talking
Time
Journalists
Journalist
Spend

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

Image
If you don’t act, the danger becomes stronger.
Ai Weiwei
Image
After I came back [to China], there was still a long period of time when I felt I had nothing to do.
Ai Weiwei
Image
There's no single artwork I even want to mention or that I can even really think about it to have any feeling, to be proud of it.
Ai Weiwei
Image
Even though everybody who looked at me would call me a Chinese artist, that's the 1980s. New York in the '80s was not so interesting. I think it's quite narrow-minded. There wasn't much encouragement or opportunities for any artist - not just Chinese artists.
Ai Weiwei
Image
Only with the Internet can a peasant I have never met hear my voice and I can learn what's on his mind. A fairy tale has come true.
Ai Weiwei
Image
I never had a sense of home.
Ai Weiwei
Image
The Internet changes the structure of society all the time — this massiveness made of individuals.
Ai Weiwei
Image
I have people working together, doing different things: architecture, art installation, photography, publishing, and curatorial works and design.
Ai Weiwei
Image
My mother became much older when I came out (ed's note: of detention). She had problems with her hearing and high blood pressure. But they still support me.
Ai Weiwei
Image
It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that. There are crises and emergencies all the time, we might not even be aware of some. But I am afraid we'll have to wait and observe precisely what the government is up to.
Ai Weiwei
Image
For artists and intellectuals today, what is most needed is to be clear about social responsibility, because that is what most people automatically give up. Just to protect yourself as an individual is very political. You don't have to march on Tiananmen, but you do have to be clear-minded, to find your own means of expression.
Ai Weiwei
Image
No matter what happens, nothing can prevent the historical process by which society demands freedom and democracy.
Ai Weiwei
Image
I think everybody deserves freedom. Freedom is such an abstract word, but it's all we need.
Ai Weiwei
Image
The rest of the world understands little about China's changes and the possibilities and crises that come with them.
Ai Weiwei
Image
It became like a symbolic thing, to be “an artist.” After Duchamp, I realized that being an artist is more about a lifestyle and attitude than producing some product.
Ai Weiwei
Image
To the media, I have become a symbolic figure, critical of China. According to the government, I am a dangerous threat.
Ai Weiwei
Image
Politics is like air and water. And you know if there is bad politics. Everyone is polluted. Everyone is unhealthy. See the people walking on the street: how they act.
Ai Weiwei
Image
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.
Ai Weiwei
Image
I think of art as coming from daily life, daily experience. I think it's very important not to have it become work for some kind of elite circle.
Ai Weiwei
Image
If my art has nothing to do with people's pain and sorrow, what is 'art' for?
Ai Weiwei