Ai Weiwei Quotes

It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it's a painting, and if you can walk around it it's a sculpture.

I have a passion for modern and contemporary art.

That was a piece I did in 1963 with Konrad Lueg in a department store, in the furniture department. It was announced in some papers as an exhibition opening, but the people who came didn't know that it was to be a sort of Happening. I don't think it is quite right that it has become so famous anyhow. It was just a lot of fun, and the word itself, Capitalist Realism, hit just right. But it wasn't such a big deal.

As far as art's concerned, I probably like modern art more than traditional art.

I like connecting with people, and that's what good art is: a point of connection. There's nothing better, on stage or on film.

Richard Serra, the great sculptor, personifies an artist for me.

I think Damien Hirst is hilarious. And I think he's a true artist. He's not hilarious first; I think he is a real artist, and I also think he's got an amazing sense of humor.

When I was a kid and started to be obsessed by art in the 1980s, the art world was in this polarity Warhol/Beuys, Beuys/Warhol. Both expended the notion of art extremely, but in very different ways.

Obviously I always wanted to do a contemporary piece.

All of the significant art of today stems from Conceptual art. This includes the art of installation, political, feminist and socially directed art.

When I was growing up, all the art that touched me was lens-generated, like Gerhard Richter, or Polke, Rauschenberg, Warhol.

'Untitled' is a time machine that can transport you to 1992, an edgy moment when the art world was crumbling, money was scarce, and artists like Tiravanija were in the nascent stages of combining Happenings, performance art, John Cage, Joseph Beuys, and the do-it-yourself ethos of punk. Meanwhile, a new art world was coming into being.

Now, to describe the process of the Wrapped Reichstag, which went from 1971 to '95, there is an entire book about that, because each one of our projects has its own book. The book is not an art book, meaning it's not written by an art historian.

In 2009, I began creating 'Waterworks' with the new vernacular coming from the 'Signs of Life' work in Las Vegas.

My favorite Twombly is 'Apollo and the Artist,' with the big 'Apollo' written across it.

I think Chris Burden is terrific. I really do.

Of all the artists who emerged in the '80s, I think perhaps Cindy Sherman is the most important.

Performing, not rehearsing, is a dancer's raison d'etre, and I've been lucky to 'etre' in some extraordinary places - Cuba, Paris, Mongolia. In particular, a two-week stint in Greece leaps to mind. We danced in the Acropolis's Herodes Atticus amphitheater, once a venue for gladiator spectacles.

It wasn't stone. It wasn't welded steel. It wasn't traditional sculpture. They thought it was craft, or something else, but not art. They couldn't define it in the early Fifties when I was starting out.

Like most sensible people, you probably lost interest in modern art about the time that Julian Schnabel was painting broken pieces of the crockery that his wife had thrown at him for painting broken pieces of crockery instead of painting the bathroom and hall.

I want everything to build and create a massive artwork composed of different songs, colors, physical art and visuals.

I have a fairly good collection of paintings, both classical and contemporary.

I once made a giant six-foot can of Crisco that a person had to dance in and that had an Elvis wig on top.

I like Ryan McGinley's work.

I am a huge fan of Adrian Piper: how she works, how she reveals her process in the work, how she writes about it.