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The only reason they put me in jail is my involvement in politics, my criticism of the authorities. Later the excuse for my detention became my tax problem. But internally they never told me anything about it. I don't want to underestimate their intelligence, but up to this day I think what they did is very stupid. In fact, they even helped me in an ironic sense. They gave me a chance to explain what is happening with this system. They provided such a platform for me.
Ai Weiwei
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If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future.
Ai Weiwei
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Because of the economic crisis, China and the United States are bound together. This is a totally new phenomenon, and nobody will fight for ideology anymore. It's all about business.
Ai Weiwei
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Tax crimes should be investigated by the tax bureau, not through secret police detention.
Ai Weiwei
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Writers, artists, and commentators on websites are detained or thrown into jail when they reflect on democracy, opening up, reform and reason. This is the reality of China.
Ai Weiwei
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Once you've tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country.
Ai Weiwei
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Three years after the CCTV headquarters fire [in Beijing in February 2009], human skeletons lie forgotten. Is anyone accountable?
Ai Weiwei
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But censorship by itself doesn't work. It is, as Mao said, about the pen and the gun.
Ai Weiwei
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China has not established the rule of law and thus there is no justice.
Ai Weiwei
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I think restrictions are an essential condition in the fight for freedom of expression. It's also a source for any kind of creativity.
Ai Weiwei
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They [the government] really want to maintain power. At the same time, they refuse to communicate. They refuse to have good intentions. They refuse to be sincere. How can that last?
Ai Weiwei
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The language of communication will always need to be renewed.
Ai Weiwei
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Modernism represents a true kind of living. Modernism is not about form or method or the works of a few artists, but rather about a necessary way of living. And only this kind of lifestyle can save China, because if we don't have modernism, then we will die under the grasp of one or another ideology. Modernism at least says that every person is free and needs to honestly encounter his own life.
Ai Weiwei
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The Chinese [government] only superficially speaks the language of the international community.
Ai Weiwei
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This is a decadent era. Its main characteristic is that it's dependent on lies and cheating. Once it loses this characteristic, it can't survive for even a day.
Ai Weiwei
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[With] 140 words in Chinese, you really can write a novel. Most of Confucius's sentences [are] only four words, so 140 words [might] take his whole life to write. And you can discuss the most profound ideas related to democracy, freedom, poetry.
Ai Weiwei
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I definitely know people who are shameless enough to give up basic values. I see this kind of art, and when I see it I feel ashamed. In China they treat art as some form of decoration, a self-indulgence. It is pretending to be art. It looks like art. It sells like art. But it is really a piece of shit.
Ai Weiwei
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Every day I think, this will be the day I get taken in again....
Ai Weiwei
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Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. Simply put, aside from using one's imagination - perhaps more importantly - creativity is the power to act.
Ai Weiwei
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Measuring national prestige by gold medals is like using Viagra to judge the potency of a man.
Ai Weiwei
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Chairman Mao was the first in the world to use Twitter. All his quotations are within 140 words.
Ai Weiwei
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Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.
Ai Weiwei
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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
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Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
Ai Weiwei
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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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Quote of the day
Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
Dorothy L. Sayers
Ai Weiwei
Creative Commons
Born:
August 28, 1957
(age 66)
Bio:
Ai Weiwei is a Chinese Contemporary artist and activist. Ai collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics.
Known for:
Sunflower Seeds (2010)
Coca-Cola vase
Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (2011)
Cube Light (2008)
Map of China (2008)
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