The leadership knows that you cannot solve the issues of China's future with the means of the past. The demographic consequences of the one-child policy, the build-up of the welfare state, the jobs for 7 million university graduates every year, the immense corruption: Even some Western governments would have to scramble to find solutions to such problems.
I think the pearls - one is a necklace, and another you have five hundred pounds of pearls, which may be one million pearls in a bowl - really show a kind of [society] condition.
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.
My image of what a city should be - the super-rich and all the poor and desperate and the people who have some kind of a desire. It's a surviving game, people trying to survive on many different levels.
I don't think it's worth discussing new directions in the context of Chinese art - there were no old directions, either. Chinese art has never had any clear orientation.
If we all say the same thing, then I think the government has to listen. But because no one is saying it, I become singled out, even though what I'm saying is common sense. It's very essential values that we all have to protect. But in Chinese society, people are giving up on protecting these values.
I am very much interested in the so-called useless object. I mean, it takes perfect craftsmanship, beautiful material carefully measured and crafted, but at the same time it’s really useless.
If a society cannot even support somebody like me, then people ask: Who is under protection then? That's why there is such support for me. It is not because I am so beautiful or I am so charming. People feel: This guy is fighting for us.