Ai Weiwei Quotes

They all ask: Why? Why is it that this man’s name [Ai Weiwei] can never be typed on a Chinese computer or the whole sentence will disappear?

This simple form of repression, of using the method of not letting anyone speak, will never succeed.

People often say I started to become too outspoken after a certain period. It’s all because of the Internet. If we didn’t have this technology I would be same as everybody else. I couldn’t really amplify my voice.

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?

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.

The world is a sphere, there is no East or West.

Maybe there is something I got from it. Maybe you also start to be clear on certain things.

The state is taking action against people who have peacefully demonstrated their ideas. They are writers—all they did is to express their minds through the Internet. So the pattern is very clear. The state tries to maintain stability by crushing any thought of making change. It could happen to me, because I did the same thing and in many cases I went much further and deeper. But I always think the government can learn from their mistakes—they should learn and understand; they should be just as intelligent as anyone else.

I don’t want the next generation to fight the same fight as I did.

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.

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.

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.

Today, the West feels very shy about human rights and the political situation. They’re in need of money. But every penny they borrowed or made from China has really come as a result of how this nation sacrificed everybody’s rights. With globalization and the Internet, we all know it. Don’t pretend you don’t know it. The Western politicians—shame on them if they say they’re not responsible for this. It’s getting worse, and it will keep getting worse.

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.

The 81 days of detention were a nightmare. I am not unique; it happened to many people in China. Conditions were extreme, created by a system that thinks it is above the law and has become a kind of monstrous machine. There were so many moments when I felt desperate and hopeless. But still, the next morning, I heard the birds singing.