Weiwei-isms

By Ai Weiwei

The quotable Ai Weiwei

This collection of quotes demonstrates the elegant simplicity of Ai Weiwei's thoughts on key aspects of his art, politics, and life. A master at communicating powerful ideas in astonishingly few words, Ai Weiwei is known for his innovative use of social media to disseminate his views. The short quotations presented here have been carefully selected from articles, tweets, and interviews given by this acclaimed Chinese artist and activist. The book is organized into six categories: freedom of expression; art and activism; government, power, and moral choices; the digital world; history, the historical moment, and the future; and personal reflections.

Together, these quotes span some of the most revealing moments of Ai Weiwei's eventful career—from his risky investigation into student deaths in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to his arbitrary arrest in 2011—providing a window into the mind of one of the world's most electrifying and courageous contemporary artists.

Select Quotes from the Book:

On Freedom of Expression

• "Say what you need to say plainly, and then take responsibility for it."
• "A small act is worth a million thoughts."
• "Liberty is about our rights to question everything."

On Art and Activism

• "Everything is art. Everything is politics."
• "The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay."
• "Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it. I don't feel that much anger. I equally have a lot of joy."

On Government, Power, and Making Moral Choice

• "Once you've tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country."
• "I feel powerless all the time, but I regain my energy by making a very small difference that won't cost me much."
• "Tips on surviving the regime: Respect yourself and speak for others. Do one small thing every day to prove the existence of justice."

On the Digital World

• "Only with the Internet can a peasant I have never met hear my voice and I can learn what's on his mind. A fairy tale has come true."
• "The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It's as simple as that."
• "The Internet is the best thing that could have happened to China."

On History, the Historical Moment, and the Future

• "If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future."
• "We need to get out of the old language."
• "The world is a sphere, there is no East or West."

Personal Reflection

• "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."
• "Anyone fighting for freedom does not want to totally lose their freedom."
• "Expressing oneself is like a drug. I'm so addicted to it."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Release date: Dec 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781400845859

Book preview

Weiwei-isms

Weiwei-isms

Ai Weiwei

Edited by Larry Warsh

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Princeton & Oxford

Copyright © 2013 by Ai Weiwei

Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work

should be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,

Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford

Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW

press.princeton.edu

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ai, Weiwei.

Weiwei-isms / Ai Weiwei ; edited by Larry Warsh.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-691-15766-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Ai, Weiwei—Quotations. I. Warsh, Larry. II. Title.

N7349.A5A35 2012

709.2—dc23     2012029359

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

This book has been composed in Joanna MT

Printed on acid-free paper. ∞

Printed in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

On Freedom of Expression

On Art and Activism

On Government, Power, and Making Moral Choices

On the Digital World

On History, the Historical Moment, and the Future

Personal Reflections

SOURCES

CHRONOLOGY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

Weiwei-isms distills Ai Weiwei’s thinking on the topics of individual rights and freedom of expression, filtered through his responses to a range of events—the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Sichuan earthquake, for instance, or his own eighty-one-day detention by the Chinese authorities. Excerpted from Ai’s own newspaper articles, Twitter posts, media interviews, and other sources, Weiwei-isms is organized around six themes: freedom of expression; art and activism; government, power, and making moral choices; the digital world; history and the future; and personal reflections. Within each section, quotes have been selected and ordered with an eye toward balance and flow. For those who aren’t conversant with Ai Weiwei’s background, a chronology takes readers through his biographical details.

Like many throughout the world, Ai Weiwei views China’s potential for greatness as measurable by its willingness to tolerate and encourage free speech among its people. In its National Human Rights Action Plan of 2012–2015, the Chinese government employs carefully chosen words to portray China as an open society, in which individual rights and free expression are fully respected. But the brutal repression of even mild forms of criticism and dissent tells an entirely different story.

China understands that to be great, it has to be good. That is, it needs to articulate a policy that respects basic human rights of free expression and personal liberty. But China wants to pursue this aim on its own schedule, so as not to disturb the interests of power and wealth or cause the military to feel threatened and seize power from the party technocrats. It is a real tightrope.

But as Ai Weiwei repeatedly points out, and centuries of history attest, human rights and freedom of expression are not set by anyone’s agenda. They are inalienable rights, central to what makes us human. For a government to deny them, in whole or in part, or to delay their implementation, is to be more machine than human. And that machine has to be challenged on many fronts. Ai Weiwei is among those leading this charge, making him one of the courageous and inspiring artists of our time.

Along with his art, Ai

Reviews for Weiwei-isms

[lukegoldstein · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

We live in a time when things have taken a noticeable turn for the longer and shorter at the same time. In the explosion of blogging and numerous other forms of online publication, people have greater access than ever before to make their voices heard and at great length. Yet, at the same time, outlets like Facebook and Twitter especially, direct their users to hone their message down, purify it to the most crystallized form before sending it out to the world. Sometimes this makes for completely inane and paltry statements about someone’s present moment of self-reflection, but there are a few out there who can use this strategy to pinpoint their message into weapons of the wordsmith. Those people are dangerous. Those people can change minds.

Oh, and it helps to be an internationally well-known artist and dissident to boot.

Weiwei-isms by Ai Weiwei is a sorted and well laid out collection of sayings and statements from one of the most publicly attacked and endangered voices in modern day China. In 2008 he was publicly lauded by his home country for the design of the famous Bird’s Nest stadium for the Beijing Olympics, yet in the same year became a harshly silenced critic in the aftermath of the deadly Sichuan earthquake. Weiwei created his own citizen’s council that investigated shoddy school building construction which helped lead to the deaths of over five thousand school children in the affected areas.

It was events like that and others that pushed Weiwei further into the world of human rights advocacy and the ongoing withering attacks against the ruling Chinese government. This book becomes not only a collection of his most pertinent political statements, but also of topics like freedom of expression, art and activism, the digital world and more. One of my personal favorites hits right off the bat on page one: “Say what you need to say plainly, and then take responsibility for it.” If only everyone in took that to heart.

Physically Weiwei-isms is a black, small hardbound book, fitting nicely into a jacket pocket and meant to be carried around, perused at chance moments and ruminated on. It knowingly bears a resemblance to the little red books that were given out by Chairman Mao in order to popularize his philosophies to his subjects. Yet, brainwashing is not the dastardly attempt of the author this time; it is more akin to brain-widening. Take a look for yourself. I feel safe in saying that some statement, one of his turns of phrase, will hit you like a punch in the gut, likely leaving an emotional bruise that will take great time and thought to recover from.