Top 359 Quotes & Sayings by Ai Weiwei - Page 5

My angst and my insecurity reflect the state's angst and insecurity. The state is scared too.

The leadership knows that you cannot solve the issues of China's future with the means of the past. The demographic consequences of the one-child policy, the build-up of the welfare state, the jobs for 7 million university graduates every year, the immense corruption: Even some Western governments would have to scramble to find solutions to such problems.

Any politician who respects China's government should tell it openly what is in his heart. It is disrespectful to keep quiet about such issues - both vis-a-vis the government and the people concerned.

We should use this public sphere and redefine - beyond China's borders - what a government is allowed to do, where its powers end and where the realm of a citizen's privacy begins.

I never felt like a Chinese citizen because I was pushed away at a very young age. My father, a writer, was a national enemy of the Communist Party. He was forbidden to write for 20 years. We literally lived underground. We dug a hole and lived there for years. My father cleaned public toilets, even though he was a highly respected poet. Nationality and borders are barriers to our intelligence, to our imagination and to all kinds of possibilities.

If it's possible, I will have some noodles in the morning and start talking to people, start to think about a few things in my head - the project or a few ideas which are not finished or if there are possible directions and what will lead into another game. It's always like setting up some kind of game you can continuously play.

If I really have nothing to do, I just watch my cats, take some photos, and go back to my personal blog.

In the end, I think, the state's rigidity is a function of its own insecurity, its indecisiveness.

It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that.

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.

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.

If people are being abused or even killed during an arrest, this is highly disturbing.

I think the pearls - one is a necklace, and another you have five hundred pounds of pearls, which may be one million pearls in a bowl - really show a kind of [society] condition.

I'm doing quite a few things now. In one day, I will go to Kassel, Germany, for a documentary project I've been preparing for half a year. I will bring 1,001 Chinese to participate as my artwork there - any Chinese who is a Chinese passport holder and over eighteen years old could apply through my blog. I'm just bringing them to Kassel to see the art show, and pay their room and board.

Destroy or build. Crazy or noncrazy. I'm not nostalgic about the old city. I don't enjoy it that much.

To give a price to an artwork, no matter how high or low, is always absurd. It's not something that can be measured by money or by certain numbers.

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.

Selling high or low doesn't mean anything. It has to do purely with the market.

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.

Just look at the statistics: Each university has tens of thousands of applications for students who want to be in art school, but they can only accept a few hundred.

Any design, any city, any kind of craziness or tragedy, it all comes from a long time of preparation.

China is at a different stage of development, human rights are violated here much more often. And still, we see improvements even here.

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

I grew up in a desert, which has no kind of imagination.

I think Donald Trump should cool down a little bit. To pay more attention to the history. To really understand what U.S.'s value is about. I think, as a president, those things you always have to ask.

Civilization has evolved toward more acceptance, understanding and tolerance of global thinking. If we accept differences, our creativity booms. It makes life much more colorful. It also makes humanity much more safe. If we see pureness somewhere as something to be desired, the trouble starts.

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.

I don't think [price] reflects if the work is good or bad.A good artist shouldn't be nervous about that.

Even if there have been setbacks during these past years, China is changing. China's society is opening.

The fantasy we had with pearls was always so luxurious and unique with a kind of rareness.

It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that. There are crises and emergencies all the time, we might not even be aware of some. But I am afraid we'll have to wait and observe precisely what the government is up to.

Today, we jump into this globalization of the economy and the internet age.

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.

For years, I refused to go to any openings, not even my own.

I think to deal with the situation like human crisis, 65 million people being displaced, lost their home, and with such human tragedy, has to make every level of society to be conscious and to be alert about the situation. So, the politicians and the people who make decisions very often is the one we think can make some difference. But of course they will not make a difference if the citizens or the individuals not push it or not to speak out, to possess a very strong voice about, this is not acceptable.

If a master, a wise and experienced man, wields a great weapon, that's beautiful. He can serve peace with it. But if someone's emotions are imbalanced, even if he has the best equipment, he will still mean danger. Modern technology requires calm. You shouldn't trust anyone with a car who has no knowledge about vehicles or roads.

How to become a really modern society when today we are so - as a human being, we feel so powerful. We have high technology and a superb way of controlling our life. And at the same time, in many ways we are so primitive. We are not on - even just a step away from the most brutal and primitive crudity. To be very crude on those issues, which is always challenges and we always have to look at the situation like a mirror, to draw some understanding.

Each year, more people want to become artists.

We grew up in a very material-lacking socialist society, but today China is a capitalist society. It's very materialistic. It's full of desire and luxury goods.

The relationship between the Chinese government and me is like a Cold War.

The whole Chinese system - not just the political leadership, the military too, the whole power structure, our education system, the whole of society - is suffering from being cut off from the free flow of information. That's why the country can't face up to open competition - unless it resorts to measures like North Korea.

Nationality started as something natural, but we should not be restrained by the old politics that make up these clear lines. It should have its own way of evolving. In some places, it will evolve slower and in others, faster. It's like the mountains, the ocean and the rivers. It has its own geological forms. Societies cannot be flat. But during change, human rights, human dignity and free speech have to be protected. Otherwise, we'll be going backward.

[Museums] all belongs to the cultural department, which is the biggest cultural department in the world.

I believe [the architecture firm] Herzog and de Meuron and our collaboration made the product the best it could be.

At the moment about 350,000 students return to China from abroad each year - 350,000 young and educated people. I know about them because they know me and often ask me in the street if they can take a selfie with me. These folks are creative and ironic, and the government can ultimately not control what is going on in their heads.

Even if I have hundreds of things to do, the disconnected feeling is still there because it is very hard to find a real purpose of life.

Beijing is constructing a 100,000 m2 modern art museum, yet it will not feature any of my work.

I suddenly realized I was getting ten opening notes a day on my mobile phone, more than when I was in New York. But this is China, where nothing is surprising.

Our lives are bound by physical limits, familial ties, political conditions, and geographical restrictions. Individual freedom takes us beyond them all.

Because Chinese art is booming, it legitimizes this profession.

China has a rich history that has spanned millennia. It consists of the histories of many nations and regions.

If you just turn to your paper or television each day, there are thousands of stories that are much more shocking than the gallery artworks.

I often feel more disgust than pride about this kind of success. So there's no regret whatsoever.

When I first got into the first-year study after the Cultural Revolution, got into the same school with this group, I wasn't conscious of the so-called "Fifth Generation." I didn't like that kind of study condition because there's no real, true education there.

All the rich people collect traditional Chinese art. So it's very natural for Chinese families to still see art as the highest human performance and send their children to this field.

I never saw [Allen Ginsberg] as some kind of crazy figure.

New York was not a romantic city at [80th]. Nobody knows who you are and you don't have to care about anybody else. It's a very cold city, I should say.

I think we cannot have a double standard. We cannot see our art as different from the reality. We cannot use two different sets of judgment.

I can still wake up the next day and feel that there's something that needs to be done, which always amuses me.

So-called Chinese art and culture is under control of the Party. They exist to serve the official agenda. I call it fake art and culture.