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"Never love a person or a country that you don’t have the freedom to leave" - Ai Weiwei

Writer's picture: Madeleina KayMadeleina Kay

Updated: Oct 13, 2024



'1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows' by Ai Weiwei was a really important book for me to read for my research paper because of how his artwork reflects his lived experience of human rights abuses by a Totalitarian reigime. Having read several academic publications on Chinese Thought Reform - the personal perspective was all the more galling. I also loved this quote which links the Totalitarian abuse to domestic abuse: 'Never love a person or a country that you don’t have the freedom to leave'.


I found the first half of the book rather frustrating to get through because it detailed the life of his father - which was important context to his personal development as an artist and life experiences - but I wasn't particularly endeared to his life choices (treatment of women) nor his poetry. The second half of the book was much more engaging for me to read and Ai Weiwei's writing is beautiful with some fantastic quotes.



Key Quotes

‘in 1967, Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” entered a new stage, and my father, now seen as a purveyor of bourgeois literature and art, was once again placed on the blacklist of ideological targets, along with other Trotskyists, apostates, anti-party elements.’ (page 5)

 

‘The Cultural Revolution, we were told, was “a deeper, broader new stage in the development of the socialist revolution,” which was “a revolution that touches people to their very souls.” The goal was to “dislodge the power holders who are taking the capitalist road, critique the bourgeois reactionary academic ‘authorities,’ critique the ideology of the bourgeoisie and of all exploiting classes, and reform education, culture, and everything in the superstructure that does not conform to the socialist economic base, in order to consolidate and develop the socialist system”.’ (page 11)

 

‘Thanks to Father’s meticulous pruning, after several months the woods around our production unit in Little Siberia looked much better, and even attracted approving glances from other workers. The leadership realised belatedly that it had been a mistake to allow a “rightist” to beautify the environment, as the task had not turned out to be as much of a punishment as intended. So, in order to make Father’s life more miserable, now he was made to clean the latrines.’ (page 73)

 

Literature and art’s integration with politics finds expression in their truthfulness: the more truthful works, the closer their alignment with the progressive political direction of their era.’ (page 80)

 

‘The atmosphere surrounding the investigations became increasingly tense, with writers confined to the Central Party School for “rectification” and “rescue.” Every day they would be forced to study specified texts and works by Mao, questioned continually, and forced to write self-criticisms… When forced to write “confessional” materials [Ai Qing] would pace back and forth in the cave, in an agony of indecision.’ (page 86)

 

‘He was just calling a spade a spade. What he meant was: Never forget that under a totalitarian system cruelty and absurdity go hand in hand.’ (page 137)

 

‘[Father] also grew bolder, critiquing the cultural policies of the Mao era and pressing for greater artistic freedom. On January 12, 1979, at a forum for writers and artists, he said, “If there is only the freedom to criticise, but no freedom to discuss, who’s going to be willing to be creative?” Five days later, at a forum sponsored by the poetry journal Shikan, he made a related point. “Without political democracy,” he argued, “it’s impossible to talk about artistic democracy. You can’t expect democracy to be handed to you on a plate – you acquire it through struggle.” Why, for s many years, did people not say what they really thought? Because, he noted, truthfulness offended power., and it would bring punishment, ruining oneself and one’s family alike. Now and in the future, poets must speak the truth, raising issues, asking the question why.’ (page 153)

 

‘While the activities of the Stars showed that agitation for change in the art world could achieve some success, the government had zero tolerance for dissent that challenged political norms. On October 16,1979, Wei Jingsheng was put on trial, and after proceedings that lasted only one day, he was sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment, on trumped-up charges that included revealing military secrets, writing reactionary essays, and carrying out counterrevolutionary agitation.’ (page 163)

 

‘For a certain subset, art had become a target of speculation and just part of the race to find the next new thing. Art had long been a consumption commodity, a decoration catering to the tastes of the rich, and under commercial pressures it was bound to degenerate. As artworks rise in monetary value, their spiritual dimension declines, and art is reduced to little more than an investment asset, a financial product.’ (page 178)

 

‘These little acts of mischief in 1994 marked a starting point in my management with the making of art. By simply taking a new attitude, I had recovered my sense of self. By alternately damaging the past and reconstructing it, I was able to make something different. Disdain is a chasm that no power can cross; it makes spaces for itself by subverting order.’ (page 200)

‘The point I wanted to make was that concept is not method, but art practice in its own right.’ (page 206)

 

Ma Liuming: ‘Later, when I asked him about his experience in prison, he said he had felt confined to a strange, meaningless limbo, where part of him was slowly leaving and another part slowly waking up. It was two months before he was released.’ (page 207)

 

‘Things have to follow a set procedure in China, no matter how you argue your case. An individual has no right to challenge authority, and humiliation is often presented as an honour that you are fortunate to receive. Power erases individual thoughts and feelings, always.’ (page 208)

 

‘Changes to furniture’s functionality bring changes to its identity destabilising the nature of the object, and I saw that multiple meanings can emerge through the process of fracture and reconstitution.’ (page 211)

 

‘Freedom, of course, inspires expression, and soon my readers understood me even better than my family did. On the internet, social coercion is nullified and the individual acquires a kind of weightlessness, no longer subordinate to the power structure.’ (page 228)

 

‘On my blog I asked: “If a community denies the facts and covers up mistakes, is there any chance it will improve itself? On what sort of foundations is today’s political life built?”.’ (pages 230-231)

 

‘I agreed to take forty of the stranded cats, hoping to make amends for the mistreatment they had suffered at human hands.’ (page 235)

 

‘I am no admirer of order – whether order appears in Eastern or Western guise, it always triggers suspicion I me. I dislike the constraints on human nature and restriction on choice that order imposes. When you break away from mandated meaning, you enter a state of tension with your surroundings, and it is then, when you are uncomfortable, that you are most alert.’ (page 245)

 

‘I had changed, it seemed, from being an artist to being a social activist. It is not at all difficult to become a social activist: as soon as you start expressing concern about the nation’s future, you’re already on a path that could take you straight to jail.’ (page 256)

 

The Chinese critic Fu Xiaodong: ‘with one hundred million handmade sunflower seeds, Ai Weiwei has, in the most patient and extreme was possible, asserted the independence of each individual. Just as every one of these sees is different, complete in itself, every life is valuable: none deserves to be drowned in the swirling red dust of worldly strivings.’ (page 286)

 

‘All I could do was register my disgust online. “When a state restricts a citizen’s movements,” I wrote, “this means it has become a prison… Never love a person or a country that you don’t have the freedom to leave.”.’ (page 287)

 

‘The West has an obligation to reaffirm human rights, for otherwise its conduct is tantamount to a neocolonialist exploitation of developing nations.’ (page 291)

 

‘The full name for my form of detention was “residential surveillance at a designated location.” This allowed the authorities to hold me for up to six months in a facility outside the regular prison system and not subject to any formal constraints. It was a measure harsher than formal arrest, since I was denied legal representation and visitation rights.’ (page 299)

 

‘My total daily walking time was set at five hours, which according to the guards was half the time that other prisoners were required to exercise.’ (page 311)

 

‘Later I regretted challenging him, for when he lowered his voice and spoke softly, I found it even more disconcerting. His change of tone reflected a selective deployment of courtesy, emblematic of the system’s self-confidence.’ (page 314)

 

‘Lying down didn’t make me relax. My exhaustion actually prevented me from getting the sleep I so desperately wanted.’ (page 319)

 

‘Ever since my disappearance, friends had been closely following my news, and after my release, of course, the police surveillance had been all the tighter. As a gift to public security, I decided to let them observe everything  I was doing, who I was meeting and even how I sat in front of my computer or lay asleep in bed, by voluntarily re-creating the state of surveillance during my confinement. “Since you’re so very interested in my private affairs, I’m going to provide you with access to my entire life “ was how I explained it… On April 2, 2012, the day before the first anniversary of my disappearance, I installed webcams in front of my desk and above my bed, and began a live feed on weiweicam.com that displayed every second of my daily activities.’ (page 342)

 

‘In May 2013, with the help of my rock singer friend Zuoxiao Zuzhou, I recorded a song entitled “Dumbass” along with a music video re-creating scenes from my incarceration – something that people were eager to know more about.’ (page 345)

 

‘Around this same time, I completed a set of large sculptures called S.A.C.R.E.D. Inside six iron boxes, we realistically re-created the cell space in which I had been confined, like a diorama illustrating the life of primitive man.’ (page 345)

 

‘Tolerating the distortion of history is the first step toward tolerating humiliation in real life.’ (page 348)

 

‘My blacklisting stemmed directly from my understanding of art as a form of social intervention, promoting the values of justice and equality. When people blur right and wrong, what takes over is pragmatism and a preoccupation with what is expedient.’ (page 350)

 

‘According to one view, I was denying the “negative freedom” of the artists – in other words, their freedom to enjoy the right to not do anything at all.’ (page 351)

 

‘I am not concerned about how far I can go in my journey or where the journey will take me; no matter what happens in the future, I undoubtedly will be part of that future. For me, the worst thing would be to lose the capacity for free expression, for that would mean losing the motivation to recognise the value of life and make choices accordingly,’ (page 363)

 

‘A sense of belonging is central to one’s identity, for only with it can one find a spiritual refuge’ (page 367)

 

‘My works relating to migrants are consistent in form with the projects that have interested me in the past. Whether my status is seen as that of an artist, an activist, or a citizen, I always seek to integrate these various roles and create an effective interplay between from and language in my explorations, documentary recordings, and exhibitions.’ (page 368)

 

‘Self-expression is central to human existence. Without the sound of human voices, without warmth and colour in our lives, without attentive glances, Earth is just an insensate rock suspended in space.’ (page 369)

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