Ai Weiwei - Life Quotes

20 Sourced Quotes

View all Ai Weiwei Quotes
Freedom of expression is a very essential condition for me to make any art. Also, it is an essential value for my life. I have to protect this right and also to fight for the possibility.

Ai Weiwei
[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
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
I often ask myself if I am afraid of being detained again. I love freedom as much as anybody else, maybe more than most. But it is a tragedy to live your life in fear. It is worse than actually losing your freedom.

Ai Weiwei
It's never about me. [My supporters] use me as a mark for themselves to recognize their own form of life: I become their medium. I am always very clear about that.

Ai Weiwei
Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it. I don't feel that much anger. I equally have a lot of joy.

Ai Weiwei
If there is no freedom of expression, then the beauty of life is lost. Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it's a human need.

Ai Weiwei
I don't really care that much about if I want to be more successful or less successful in art, because I never think life and art should be separate. What's life if you don't have conversation and joy and anger?

Ai Weiwei
You see a Party system that crushes down anybody who [has] different opinions, who has different ideas in their mind. Simply to have different opinions can cost someone their life. They can be put in jail, they can be silenced, and they can [disappear]. And the other people would take it, not giving support.

Ai Weiwei
To what degree does it help us to change our life, or even to sense our existence, to really evaluate why? I think those questions cannot be escaped. Sometimes in history it's more hidden; somewhere these can be very personal and individual questions. But in certain times and certain places, your existence has to be associated with other people's situations. You have to make a reaction to the living conditions. It's not avoidable. You cannot just be blind about what is happening there. Such is the case in China.

Ai Weiwei
I don't have this concept that separates my art from my daily life. They are one thing to me. They are always one. How do you find the way to express yourself and how to communicate with others?

Ai Weiwei
I call on people to be obsessed citizens, forever questioning and asking for accountability. That's the only chance we have today of a healthy and happy life.

Ai Weiwei
The individual under this kind of life, with no rights, has absolutely no power in this land. How can they even ask you for creativity? Or imagination, or courage or passion?

Ai Weiwei
I think my stance and my way of life is my most important art.

Ai Weiwei
Life is never guaranteed to be safe, so we better use it while we are still in good condition.

Ai Weiwei
It's really life and death [not art]. When they tell you your mother is 80 years old but you cannot see her again, you can never call it performance art. Or when your son is three, and they tell you that when you are released he will be in his teens and can never recognize you as a father. You feel terrible inside, to lose those chances. Each day, they tell you, 'You will spend your life day after day the same, minute after minute the same. You just have to pay [with] your life for this kind of so-called freedom that you are fighting for.' There is no sense of justice there. Why do I have to do this with them? Why do I have to argue or play this game?

Ai Weiwei
In China, there is a long history of the government not revealing information, so it's difficult for the Chinese people to ever know the truth. It is vital that we try to bring that truth to life.

Ai Weiwei
Today China and the world will meet again. People will see that the planet is now smaller than at any time in history, that mankind should bid farewell to arrogance and indifference, to ignorance and discrimination, and understand that we share the same small piece of land. It will be a time to rediscover each other, to share what is good in life, to look each other in the eye and link all ten fingers.

Ai Weiwei
I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.

Ai Weiwei
I think right now is the moment. This is the beginning. We don't know what is it the moment of, and maybe something much crazier will happen. But really, we see the sunshine coming in. It was clouded for maybe a hundred years. Our whole condition was very sad, but we still feel warmth, and the life in our bodies can still tell that there is excitement in there, even though death is waiting. We had better not enjoy the moment, but create the moment.

Ai Weiwei