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The [China] government has improved in the last years. Of course, the structure is still the same there's still a one-party system and strong censorship.

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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Improved
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Censorship
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More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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This so-called fame or being better off doesn't really attract me at all.
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Widespread state control over art and culture has left no room for freedom of expression in the country. For more than 60 years, anyone with a dissenting opinion has been suppressed. Chinese art is merely a product: it avoids any meaningful engagement. There is no larger context. Its only purpose is to charm viewers with its ambiguity.
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The United States is a melting pot. Like John F. Kennedy said, it's a nation of immigrants. But Donald Trump wants to build a fence that clearly makes the statement: You and I are divided. We're different, and you're dangerous. That kind of thinking stops human, civilized evolution. It's dangerous to create that kind of tension.
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It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that.
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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.
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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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During the days in detention, I thought most about the moon.
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China partially wants to become part of the world. By hosting the Olympics and the Expo, they made a big effort to tell people: Look, we are the same. They want to be accepted by the international community.
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Just look at the statistics: Each university has tens of thousands of applications for students who want to be in art school, but they can only accept a few hundred.
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I don't think my father had a direct influence on me, but I do think, more or less, I was influenced by his independent individualism. And the kind of condition he had when he was in this society - the kind of mistreatment society gave him.
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Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.
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I remember one little rainy day I went searching for this apartment and I saw so many people standing on a stoop on the corner in the rain. Later I realized, that was drug traffic. They were all buying drugs.
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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.
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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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Beijing is constructing a 100,000 m2 modern art museum, yet it will not feature any of my work.
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My typical day is I wake up and appreciate that I can still wake up.
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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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If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future.
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If Shakespeare were alive today, he might be writing on Twitter.
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China has a rich history that has spanned millennia. It consists of the histories of many nations and regions.
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