邱志杰 QIU Zhijie

Qiu Zhijie was born in Fujian Province, China, in 1969. He graduated from the Printmaking Department at China Academy of Art in 1992. He is one of the most innovative Chinese contemporary artists and a prestigious avant-garde art leader of the 1990s. He is currently a professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the Dean of School of Experimental Art of CAFA. He is also a professor at the School of Inter-media Art of China Academy of Art, and supervisor of master and doctoral students. He works and lives in Hangzhou and Beijing.

As an artist, Qiu Zhijie is known for his calligraphy and ink painting, photography, video, installation and performance works. His art is representational of a new kind of experimental communication between the Chinese literati tradition and contemporary art, social participation and the power of self-liberation of art.  

As an art writer, Qiu Zhijie published several books include: The Image and Post Modernism (2002), Give Me a Mask (2003), The Limit of Freedom (2003), The Photography after Photography (2004), On Total Art (2012). Catalogs of his work include: Breaking Through the Ice (2009), The Shape of Time (2007), Archeology of Memory (2006), etc.

He was also the curator of the first video art exhibition in China in 1996, and curated a series of “Post-sense Sensibility” exhibitions during 1999 and 2005 promoting the young generation of Chinese artists. In 2012 he was the chief curator of the 9th Shanghai Biennale “Reactivation”, in 2017 he is the chief curator of the Chinese Pavilion of the 57th Venice Biennale.

He was shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize administered by the Guggenheim Foundation due to his work of The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge Project. He was awarded “Artist of the Year” of the Award of Art China in 2009, and was nominated for the same award in 2016.

His works are collected by major museums and institutions around the world, including the Guggenheim Museum in NYC, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Foundation by Christian Dior, Ullens Foundation, Neuer Berliner Kunstrerein, and the White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney.

His major solo exhibitions include: Living Writing, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2018; Qiu’s Notes on the Colorful Lantern Scroll, Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, 2018; Journey without Arrivals, Van Abbe Musuem, Eindhoven, 2017; The Unicorn and The Dragon, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice, 2013; Twilight of the Idols, Haus of World Culture, Berlin, 2009; Breaking Through The Ice, Ullens Contemporary Art Center, Beijing, 2009. The recent group exhibitions include: Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World, Guggenheim, New York, 2018; BenTu des artistes chinois dans la turbulence des mutations, LV foundation, Paris, 2016. He ever participated in: Göteborg Biennale 2013; Venice Biennial 2009, 2015; International Triennial of Contemporary Art, Yokohama, 2005; São Paulo Biennial, 2002, 2014.