I don't think I was very structured in that society and I don't really believe in personal success, which most Americans believe in.

Beijing is constructing a 100,000 m2 modern art museum, yet it will not feature any of my work.

In an environment without public platform nor protection, the individual is the most powerful and most responsible.

How to become a really modern society when today we are so - as a human being, we feel so powerful. We have high technology and a superb way of controlling our life. And at the same time, in many ways we are so primitive. We are not on - even just a step away from the most brutal and primitive crudity. To be very crude on those issues, which is always challenges and we always have to look at the situation like a mirror, to draw some understanding.

China's culture and history are closely related to my living environment. This country is my birthplace. It is also where I grew up. Its culture and history shape my relations with family, friends, society, and daily life.

I think Allen [Ginsberg] was a person who's like a child.

Of course, people will call you an old artist or young artist, which is just a character of you. But personally, I don't think my work and my understanding of art is so much related to being Chinese, but the character of that. Maybe it's beyond my own consciousness.