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 Tomorrow is the question (2019), ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum; Mappa Mundi (2019), Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Qiu’s Notes On The Colorful Lantern Scroll Project (2018), Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing; Journey Without Arrivals (2018), Lunds Konsthall; Living Writing (2018), 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa; Journey Without Arrivals (2017), Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven; Art and China After 1989 (2017), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Architecture of Life (2016), Berkeley Art Museum. The artist has also participated in major international festivals including Leaving the Echo Chamber (2019), 14th Sharjah Biennial; APT9 (2018), 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane; All The World’s Futures (2015), 56th Venice Biennale; How to (…) Things That Don't Exist (2014), 31st São Paulo Biennial; The Unseen (2011), 2th Guangzhou Triennial; Rehearsal (2010), 8th Shanghai Biennale; Making Worlds (2009), 53rd Venice Biennale; Live and Let Live (2009), 4th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale; Fever Variations (2006), 6th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju; Art Circus (2005), 2nd Yokohama Triennale; and the 3rd Mercosul Biennale (2001).
Qiu had his residency at the STPI Workshop in 2008, resulting in the exhibition The Bridge • Nanjing • Under the Heaven (2008).
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