Ai Weiwei Quotes

I don't like China. Even today, I still feel I have no emotional relations with this place.

After I came back [to China], there was still a long period of time when I felt I had nothing to do.

I never had secure, belonging feelings with this society [in China].

I don't think I was very structured in that society and I don't really believe in personal success, which most Americans believe in.

The [China] government has improved in the last years. Of course, the structure is still the same; there's still a one-party system and strong censorship.

Growing up, my family was an enemy of the state. I have experienced more disappointment than joy, much more sad stories or desperate conditions.

I don't personally feel any association with a kind of culture related to state, or culture related to power, which I think is always disgusting.

I never think any place is better than others.

I never regret anything.

Society becomes very destructive.

[Being unique] gives so much privilege to people who can make it, rather than having some moral and aesthetic discussions.

Now many enterprises are made by individuals, so the attitude has started to change.

You're still being looked at as somebody who - it's a very complicated issue.

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.

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.

If there's the right condition, I always want to express the concept or ideas in a very independent way.

[Shanghai Biennale] has been my attitude for as long as I've been practicing art and other cultural-related activities.

I curated this show [Shanghai Biennale ], I was by no means trying to shock people or be controversial.

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

I spent a lot of time standing on street corners [of New York City] talking to local residents. I spent time in bookstores and galleries. But most of the time, I really did not have much to do.

Maybe [success] is because I'm in China and I'm more open. Maybe it's my independent behavior, or because I participated in certain projects. I have no idea.

I also doubt a man can give really clear reasons for anything.

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.

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.

The society was so different [in China] - it was a feudalistic society. It didn't come to a point of industrial revolution until twenty years ago.

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

I think Allen [Ginsberg] was a person who's like a child.

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.

In my case, I was stuck there for quite a while. New York is large enough to be a very abstract city, so nobody cares.

I lived there [ in New York City] as an artist, but never as a Chinese artist.

A lot of the time [in the U.S.], I was thinking about how spending time is always questionable or is always the biggest obstacle in my life.

[Cultural departments] don't care about culture. Maybe they're the furthest from the people who understand culture.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

I don't think China has professional museums - not in the past, present, or near future.

Each year, more people want to become artists.

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.

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.

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.

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

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