Ai Weiwei
In China, we don't have any contemporary art museums. Until a few years ago, we didn't even have a gallery.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Creativity
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.Collection: Strong
We never really see the global situation as a total situation. Today's political leaders are still lacking of the vision. They very often just try to cope with their own election, their own popularity, solving the problem or selling the ideas to meet their own voters. By doing that, it creates a great imbalance in terms of making deals or treaty or all those things. Even today the borders they're seeing the physical borders are very different from the political borders. Because all those powers are so connected, and you cannot even see whose interest in what move.Collection: Moving
I think U.S. and China is a big opportunity, to be seen as partner or some kind of strategic partner maybe. But those kind of powers have a way of getting too big, then we'll have competition. And who is going to win the competition if U.S. cannot hold a strong ideology? And even the U.S. would've lost the ground to win.Collection: Strong
If people are being abused or even killed during an arrest, this is highly disturbing.Collection: People
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.Collection: Heart
It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that.Collection: Jobs
The motivation is really to say people can find the game of getting involved interesting and find the problem and really have the passion and the enthusiasm to solve it and move forward, but that's all I know.Collection: Motivation
I grew up in a desert, which has no kind of imagination.Collection: Imagination
The fantasy we had with pearls was always so luxurious and unique with a kind of rareness.Collection: Unique
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.Collection: Thinking
Destroy or build. Crazy or noncrazy. I'm not nostalgic about the old city. I don't enjoy it that much.Collection: Crazy
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.Collection: Meaningful
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.Collection: Cities
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.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Thinking
Of course, people will call you an old artist or young artist, which is just a character of you. But personally, I don't think my work and my understanding of art is so much related to being Chinese, but the character of that. Maybe it's beyond my own consciousness.Collection: Art
[Cultural departments] don't care about culture. Maybe they're the furthest from the people who understand culture.Collection: People
Everything is selected by the central government without good judgment or an understanding of culture to make it really safe. They will become nobody to maintain their power and be raised to the next higher level.Collection: Government
This world should be much more open and should be much more free, so the young people would have the chance to exercise the quality of their lives.Collection: Exercise
I'm totally independent. I don't bear any responsibility to any system.Collection: Independent
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.Collection: Art
I don't belong to a working system. They only select people if you belong to one so you can be controlled.Collection: People
What is important is that we actively express our thoughts and wishes, in every realm that we can access.Collection: Important
I always want to design a frame that’s open to everyone. I don’t see art as a secret code.Collection: Art
I also have to speak out for people around me who are afraid, who think it is not worth it or who have totally given up hope. So I want to set an example: you can do it and this is OK, to speak out.Collection: Thinking
This so-called fame or being better off doesn't really attract me at all.Collection: Fame
I think China is laughing about the results of the presidential elections. China, Russia, they all laugh about it. They see how dramatic U.S. has to be put this kind of shame on its own - cannot handle the situation. Or show such a difficulty with this liberal ideas. Men or women created equal. And to defend those very essential ideas.Collection: Men
The practice of photography is no longer a means for recording reality. Instead, it has become reality itselfCollection: Photography
I don't think there is a distinct change, because in the West I'm not a person who can serve his purpose.Collection: Thinking
I was an illegal alien for many, many years. I couldn't move. If I moved I could not even get a visa back.Collection: Moving
Of course, most luxury goods in China are for corrupted officials and their relatives. And that made China become the biggest luxury-goods market. In this kind of dictatorship, in this kind of totalitarian society, it is easy to make deals that you cannot make in a democratic society.Collection: Luxury
In my life, I often make so-called major decisions by very quick, immediate responses.Collection: Decision
Man has a tendency to try to give clear reasons to be rational, but often you can see how all those reasons are not convincing and turn out to be a big nonsense.Collection: Men
The importance of elections, transparency, legal procedures, an independent army, and the judicial system is not regarded as highly in China. These core values are the most important evidence of the health of a society, quality of life, and security. A clear understanding of such differences will help the rest of the world understand China and all that is happening to the nation.Collection: Independent
I think it's more important to show your work to the public.Collection: Thinking
Otherwise, I think the building can be bigger, larger, and the city can be much more crazy. The problem is the government structure is so deadly stupid, not really solving problems but creating a lot of problems itself every day.Collection: Crazy
[Cultural department] understand nothing but bureaucratic daily affairs. They don't care about culture.Collection: Culture
If civil society has nobody who protects the law, then what kind of society is that?Collection: Law
This is a very general understanding of art in China, that being an artist can make you money and turn you into a star.Collection: Art
If I look at it, I would laugh. I don't know how I became successful.Collection: Successful
China hasn't only existed for one day. Now, the whole nation has become richer and it's become a problem. The problem is universal. The factor is big. Everybody has to rethink the balance of the world and the whole landscape.Collection: Balance
The rest of the world understands little about China's changes and the possibilities and crises that come with them.Collection: Littles
Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.Collection: Democracy
Had I to create a name for these times, I’d say it is the age of crazinessCollection: Names
A society is healthy only when it allows its members to discuss their thoughts openly. This is also the only way that a society can gather consensus, let everyone express his or her wish, and foster creativity.Collection: Creativity
I hope that my work expresses my worldview and encourages people to exchange ideas.Collection: Ideas
Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it.Collection: Art