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In China, we don't have any contemporary art museums. Until a few years ago, we didn't even have a gallery.

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
Museums
Contemporary
China
Art
Didn
Even
Years
Gallery

More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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I have always stated I designed the stadium as a toilet seat. I don't care if this is a great cultural event or a national symbol. It has nothing to do with me. It deals with the city.
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Liberty is about our rights to question everything.
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It's always the rich and there's plenty to waste, yet still China has a lot of people living in very spare, poor conditions.
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Art needs to stand for something.
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It [success] is really by mistake.
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Selling high or low doesn't mean anything. It has to do purely with the market.
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Anyone fighting for freedom does not want to totally lose their freedom.
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The Internet has established a public sphere and developed a pressure which the government can no longer ignore.
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I think I'm just a traveler. When you walk across a river and there's no bridge, you build one. I'm used to having to deal with Chinese Communist ideology - it's not really an ideology, but a method of control. But China's problems are not just China's problems - they're human problems. Humanity has always worked better when you see it as one.
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The museums used to be exhibition halls for government propaganda, and now every city wants to build a museum. A few thousand are to be built in the next few years, all using taxpayer money. But there is no system, no research, no content, no good programs, no good managers.
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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.
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Many people are going to use [Beijing National Stadium], which makes it more meaningful. If we don't design it, somebody else has to design it.
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We are living in a popular culture where everything is overexposed.
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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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If there is no free speech, every single life has lived in vain
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You only have temporary curiosity, amusement, and challenges, but that does not necessarily mean you are really convinced that it's necessary or that it's not even worth to do it. It's just a way you have to set up some kind of activities to follow your instincts or your curiosities.
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...photographs are facts, but not necessarily true... The present always surpasses the past, and the future will not care about today.
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Warhol influenced me because of his writing. If I had never read his writings and interviews, I would never have understood his work.
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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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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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