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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
Years
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Improved
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Censorship
Strong
China
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Structure
Still
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More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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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.
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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.
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I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.
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The rest of the world understands little about China's changes and the possibilities and crises that come with them.
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New York has given me a lot, but I still don't consider it home.
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For all the tough talk about China during the presidential debates, Romney and Obama evaded any mention of China's suspect human rights record, corruption, and rule of law. By not tackling these controversial topics, the candidates are protecting a strategic partnership with China at the expense of essential human values and beliefs.
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I don't belong to a working system. They only select people if you belong to one so you can be controlled.
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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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The IT people who have made such an effort to know and understand computer technology. They are frustrated that you cannot use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in China. They are the first to recognize that the situation is terrible.
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For years, I refused to go to any openings, not even my own.
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By participating in the society we live in, we understand our conditions and the way we relate to the world.
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The practice of photography is no longer a means for recording reality. Instead, it has become reality itself
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Growing up, my family was an enemy of the state. I have experienced more disappointment than joy, much more sad stories or desperate conditions.
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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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Of course, there [in China] has to be chaos. It has to be crazy, and I don't think there's anything wrong about it except this government, which is really incapable of doing anything meaningful.
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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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All the auction houses care about is the selling of luxury goods.
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Society becomes very destructive.
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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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Through my work and ways of expression, I strive to engage in dialogue with the society that I am living in.
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