Past Solo Exhibition
STPI at Ocula Online Viewing Room: Qiu Zhijie 01.06.2020 — 30.06.2020
Information
Event has ended
1 June - 30 June 2020
About The Exhibition
Qiu Zhijie’s practice encompasses conceptual multimedia works fusing Chinese calligraphy with video, installation and performance art. His background in printmaking and radical explorations in artistic media propelled the collaboration with STPI to new creative frontiers and expanded the possibilities of art-making.
Building layers of meaning and memory through print and papermaking, Qiu explored critical issues of freedom and destiny by focusing on the geopolitical and psychological attachments to the ancient capital Nanjing City or “City of Failure” for its past of massacres and wars. Informed by historical, social and academic issues of significant cultural import, Qiu’s creative expositions took these works into the realm of social action, and are a prelude to future installations on the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge Suicide Intervention Project.
Qiu’s works have been presented at international institutions and platforms including Art and China after 1989: Theater of the Worlds, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2018), Singapore Biennale 2016: An Atlas of Mirrors, Singapore Art Museum (2016), the 56th Venice Biennale: All the World’s Futures (2015) and A Suicidology of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge 4 – On Levelling All Things at Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts (2014).
About the artist
Qiu Zhijie
Residency in 2008
Qiu Zhijie (b. 1969, Zhangzhou, China; based in Beijing, China) approaches his practice through his personal philosophy of “Total Art,” which draws upon cross-cultural histories and knowledge systems to expand on the possibilities of artistic creation. His work spans a wide range of media, including calligraphy, painting, printmaking, photography, video, installation and performance. Qiu is additionally involved in curating, teaching and political activism, which has positioned him as one of China’s most recognised contemporary artists.
Having experienced the rapid changes shaping Chinese society as it opened itself to globalisation in the 1980s, Qiu uses art to draw critical connections between calligraphic and ink painting traditions, international geopolitics, and the social condition of contemporary China. His Tattoo series, begun in 1994, comprises large-format photographs of himself—bare-chested and expressionless—with symbols and words painted across his body. These works explore the powerful hold mass media culture has on the individual, and how it has led to the futility and loss of personal identity and autonomy.
Qiu obtained his BFA in Printmaking from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, Hangzhou in 1992. His works are held in global collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; and Neue Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin.
Notable exhibitions include (2019), ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum; (2019), Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; (2018), Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing; (2018), Lunds Konsthall; (2018), 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa; (2017), Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven; (2017), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and (2016), Berkeley Art Museum. The artist has also participated in major international festivals including (2019), 14th Sharjah Biennial; (2018), 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane; (2015), 56th Venice Biennale; (2014), 31st São Paulo Biennial; (2011), 2nd Guangzhou Triennial; (2010), 8th Shanghai Biennale; (2009), 53rd Venice Biennale; (2009), 4th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale; (2006), 6th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju; (2005), 2nd Yokohama Triennale; and the 3rd Mercosul Biennale (2001).