Ai Weiwei citations (218 citations, Page 3)

Ai Weiwei: 218 citations0 J'aime

Ai Weiwei: Citations en anglais

“What can they do besides exile [me] or make me disappear? They have no imagination or creativity.”

Ai Weiwei Twitter feed: @AiWW (5:41 p.m. November 19, 2009)
2000-09, Twitter feeds, 2009

“My messages are temporary and shouldn’t be our permanent condition. And like the wind it will pass. We’ll have another wind coming.”

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Ai Weiwei

2000-09, Who Is Ai Weiwei?, 2009

“I’m so fearful, that’s not fearless… I act more brave because I know the danger’s really there. If you don’t act, the danger becomes stronger.”

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Ai Weiwei

2010-, Never Sorry, 2012

“China [is a] society which forbids any flow of the information and freedom of speech. This is on record, so everybody should know this.”

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Ai Weiwei

2010-, Digital Activism in China, 2010

“My favorite word? It’s 'act.”

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Karen Smith et al. Ai Weiwei (Contemporary Artists (Phaidon), London: Phaidon Press, 2009.
2000-09, 2009

“Twitter is the people’s tool, the tool of the ordinary people, people who have no other resources.”

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Ventura, Catherine. “ Is Twitter a Human Right? One Chinese Activist Thinks So http://www.huffingtonpost.com/catherine-ventura/is-twitter-a-human-right_b_501971.html.” Huffington Post, March 17, 2012. <br class="br">2010-, 2012

“I am always trying to find how to get the message through. [In Munich] we custom-made five thousand backpacks like the ones of those students [who died in Sichuan] to construct a simple sentence [spoken by the] mother of a dead student. It was: 'She has been happily living in this world for seven years.”

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2010-, Ai Weiwei, interview by Christiane Amanpour, 2010

“The only reason they put me in jail is my involvement in politics, my criticism of the authorities. Later the excuse for my detention became my “tax problem.” But internally they never told me anything about it. I don’t want to underestimate their intelligence, but up to this day I think what they did is very stupid. In fact, they even helped me in an ironic sense. They gave me a chance to explain what is happening with this system. They provided such a platform for me.”

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Ai Weiwei

2010-, Ai Weiwei Does Not Feel Powerful, 2011

“[With] 140 words in Chinese, you really can write a novel. Most of Confucius’s sentences [are] only four words, so 140 words [might] take his whole life to write. And you can discuss the most profound ideas related to democracy, freedom, poetry.”

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2010-, Digital Activism in China, 2010

“Being an artist is more of a mindset, a way of seeing things; it is no longer so much about producing something.”

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2000-09, Ai Weiwei, Nursing Head Wound, Sharpens Criticism, 2009

“China might seem quite successful in its controls, but it has only raised the water level. It’s like building a dam: it thinks there is more water so it will build higher. But every drop of water is still in there. It doesn’t understand how to let the pressure out. It builds up a way to maintain control and push the problem to the next generation.”

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2010-, China’s Censorship Can Never Defeat the Internet, 2012

“They tell us it will be about “emotions” and “friendship,” that it will be a night of joy. Who are they kidding?”

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2000-09, Happiness Can’t Be Faked, 2008

“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.”

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2010-, Living in Fear Is Worse Than Imprisonment, 2012

“Later I became very involved in writing. I really enjoyed that moment of writing. People would pass around my sentences. That was a feeling I never had before. It was like a bullet out of the gun.”

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2010-, Ai Weiwei: The Dissident, 2011

“It is as difficult [for Chinese politicians] to get a real smile [from the people] as it is to keep the sky blue and clouds white.”

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2000-09, Happiness Can’t Be Faked, 2008

“I want to prove that the system is not working..... You can’t simply say that the system is not working. You have to work through it”

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Osnos, Evan. “ It’s Not Beautiful: An Artist Takes On the System http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/24/100524fa_fact_osnos?currentPage=all.” New Yorker, May 24, 2010, 54–63. <br class="br">2010-, 2010

“My current situation is, I always want to find a new possibility. China is in a changing stage, and that puts me in a very difficult situation, because anytime a new condition is announced there is a lot of struggle between the new and the old. So the establishment really becomes extremely nervous because they are refusing to meet very basic human rights or values. I don’t know how long I can still struggle in China, but I will try my best. Because this is a land I am very familiar with, and we have been in the same kind of struggle for generations. I think it’s a time for change.”

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Ai Weiwei, “In China, Is Censorship the Mother of Creativity?” Interview on The Stream, Aljazeera, April 16, 2012.
2010-, 2012

“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 okay, to speak out.”

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2010-, I have to speak for people who are afraid, 2010

“When I returned to China [from the United States], I didn’t have a U. S. passport, a wife, or a university degree. From the Chinese point of view, I was a total failure.”

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2000-09, Truth to Power, 2009

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

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2010-, Ai Weiwei Says Blind Dissident’s Escape Will Inspire Chinese, 2012

“No matter how long our politicians order people to sing songs of praise, no matter how many fireworks they launch into the heavens, and no matter how many foreign leaders they embrace, they cannot arouse a genuine mood of joy and celebration among the people.”

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Ai Weiwei

2000-09, Happiness Can’t Be Faked, 2008

“I think China is in a chaos now and it could be more chaos. It’s an orderly chaos. It’s a party that ruthlessly violates every human’s basic rights to serve its own purpose.”

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2010-, Digital Activism in China, 2010

“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.”

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2000-09, Escape from Propaganda, 2009

“[People] always tell me, “Weiwei, leave the nation, please.” Or “Live longer and watch them die.” Either leave, or be patient and watch how they die. I really don’t know what I’m going to do.”

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2010-, The City: Beijing, 2011

“I want people to see their own power.”

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2000-09, Meet the Most Interesting Person in China, 2009

“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?”

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2010-, Ai Weiwei: ‘Shame on Me.’, 2011

“I’ve never planned any part of my career—except being an artist. And I was pushed into that corner because I thought being an artist was the only way to have a little freedom.”

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2010-, Life’s Work: Ai Weiwei, 2012

“I see myself not as a leader but as somebody who initiates things or finds the problem or provokes a discussion. You have to be always ready to engage, willing to participate. When events or history happen, you just have to be aware and respond.”

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2010-, Life’s Work: Ai Weiwei, 2012

“Everything is art. Everything is politics.”

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Coonan, Clifford. “ An Artist’s Struggle for Justice in China http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/an-artists-struggle-for-justice-in-china1912352.html.” Independent, February 27, 2010. <br class="br">2010-, 2010

“I came to art because I wanted to escape the other regulations of the society. The whole society is so political. But the irony is that my art becomes more and more political.”

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Wines, Michael. “China’s Impolitic Artist, Still Waiting to Be Silenced.” New York Times, November 28, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/world/asia/28weiwei.html?pagewanted=all
2000-09, 2009