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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.

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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Controlled
Belong
System
Working
People

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression. I don’t think anybody can separate art from politics. The intention to separate [the two] is itself a very political intention.
Ai Weiwei
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In a society that restricts individual freedoms and violates human rights, anything that calls itself creative or independent is a pretence. It is impossible for a totalitarian society to create anything with passion and imagination.
Ai Weiwei
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The freedom of speech is an important yardstick for a society's level of civilization.
Ai Weiwei
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What is important is that we actively express our thoughts and wishes, in every realm that we can access.
Ai Weiwei
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I think everybody deserves freedom. Freedom is such an abstract word, but it's all we need.
Ai Weiwei
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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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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.
Ai Weiwei
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This so-called fame or being better off doesn't really attract me at all.
Ai Weiwei
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I have to find a place for my own. I have to search for my own happiness.
Ai Weiwei
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Liberty is about the right to question everything.
Ai Weiwei
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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
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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.
Ai Weiwei
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[Cultural departments] don't care about culture. Maybe they're the furthest from the people who understand culture.
Ai Weiwei
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I grew up in a desert, which has no kind of imagination.
Ai Weiwei
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In the end, I think, the state's rigidity is a function of its own insecurity, its indecisiveness.
Ai Weiwei
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I think Allen [Ginsberg] was a person who's like a child.
Ai Weiwei
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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
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I have people working together, doing different things: architecture, art installation, photography, publishing, and curatorial works and design.
Ai Weiwei
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I think my stance and my way of life is my most important art.
Ai Weiwei
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No matter what happens, nothing can prevent the historical process by which society demands freedom and democracy.
Ai Weiwei