Ai Weiwei
Leading Chinese artist, curator, architectural designer, cultural and social commentator and activist.
"Every day I think, this will be the day I get taken in again . . . ."
"There is no revolution like the Communist revolution. You simply burn all the books, kill all of the thinking people and use the poor proletariat to create a very simple benchmark to gauge social change."
"In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want—not only you, your whole family and all people like you."
"My activism is a part of me. If my art has anything to do with me, then my activism is part of my art."
"The officials want China to be seen as a cultured, creative nation, but in this anti-liberal political society everything outside the direct control of the state is seen as a potential threat."
"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."
"The people who control culture in China have no culture."
"We need to get out of the old language."
"I loved New York—every inch of it. It was a little bit scary at that time, but still, the excitement was so strong—visually and intellectually. It was like a monster."
"The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay."
"They don’t believe in liberty. They don’t believe in China before the Communists. There is only one simple, clear task: to protect their control, to maintain their governing. Which is such a pity."
"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."
"I don’t feel powerful at all. I am still under this kind of detention, and you know, this is kind of a bail. Even yesterday I realized while trying to take care of the baby, [at] the park, [I had] been secretly followed and it’s quite fragile. Maybe being powerful means to be fragile."
"It’s hard to recover. You become not so innocent. You become, in a way, more sophisticated, which I think you shouldn’t. We should all have more simple happiness . . . . You become bitter."
"The Internet is the best thing that could have happened to China."
"They just don’t trust people. They don’t trust individuals, they don’t trust any change that should serve and benefit people, and they try to stop it."
"China has not established the rule of law and thus there is no justice."
"Do they want me to stay? Do they want me to leave? Do they want me to hang myself? To kill myself? What do they want?"
"I think by shattering it we can create a new form, a new way to look at what is valuable—how we decide what is valuable."
"Being an artist is more of a mindset, a way of seeing things; it is no longer so much about producing something."