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QIU ANXIONG
(b. 1972 in Chengdu, China. Lives and works in Shanghai, China.)
Qiu Anxiong (b. 1972, Chengdu) is one of China’s most prominent contemporary artists. Brought up in the capital of Sichuan province in the southwest of China. There, he studied at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute under the progressive artistic practice of Ye Yongqing and Zhang Xiaogang. Qiu and his friends collectively founded a bar which became a hub for the blossoming underground music and art circles in Sichuan, and his colleagues included He Duoling, Zhou Chunya, and Shen Xiaotong. In 2003 he graduated from the University of Kassel College of Art in Germany after six years of studying both contemporary international art and traditional Chinese culture. In 2004, he made Shanghai his permanent home, and began teaching at Shanghai Normal University.
After having worked predominantly in oil painting during his studies in Kassel and having later turned to landscape painting in the tradition of the old Chinese masters, Qiu’s return to Shanghai in 2004 marked a shift in interest towards animations and video art. In his animated films, Qiu co-mingles the classical and the contemporary, using the traditional Chinese ink-and-wash style to transpose contemporary social and environmental issues onto traditional Chinese landscapes, taking the undifferentiated mass of history as his raw material. Qiu’s works are known for their profound and bleak contemplation on the relationship between man and nature, and criticism of mass urbanization and environmental degradation.
Qiu Anxiong’s work is held in numerous museum collections, including: Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, USA; Spencer Museum of Art, Kansas, USA; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University, UK; Kunst Haus Zurich, Switzerland; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan; Art Museum of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway.
Qiu Anxiong rose to international prominence in the 2006 Shanghai Biennial, and, the same year, received the CCAA Contemporary Art Award from the Shanghai Zhengdai Museum of Modern Art (2006). Subsequently, he participated in numerous international biennales and festivals, including: 3rd Nanjing International Art Festival, China (2016); 1st Animation Film Festival Xi An, China (2012); 4th Ink Painting Art Biennale Tai Pei, Taiwan (2012); 1st Animation Biennale, OCAT Art Center, Shen Zhen, China (2012); Chengdu Biennale, China (2011/2001); 54th Venice Biennale, Italy, Collateral Program (2011); 29th Sao Paulo Biennale, Brazil (2010); Busan Biennale, Korea (2010); Nanjing Bienale, China (2010); Animamix Biennial, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (2009); 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT6), Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia (2009-2010); 11th Cairo Biennale, Egypt (2008); 2nd Athens Biennial, Greece (2009); 5th Media Biennale, Seoul, Korea (2008); Mediations Biennale, Poznań, Poland (2008); 3rd Guangzhou Triennial, China (2008); 16th Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2008); 3rd Lianzhou International Photo Festival, China (2007);
Selected solo exhibitions at major museums include: Arken Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj, Denmark (2013/2009); OCAT, Shenzhen, China (2011); Crow Collection of Asian Art Museum, Dallas, TX, USA (2011); Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS, USA (2010); Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan (2007). Museum group exhibitions include: MOCA Yinchuan, China (2017); Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway (2017); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA (2016/2013); MOCA Shanghai, China (2016/2014/2012); Kunsthaus Graz, Austria (2015); Hong Kong Museum of Art, China (2013); Times Art Museum , Guangzhou (2013); UCCA Art Museum, Beijing, China (2012); Istanbul Modern Art Museum, Turkey (2011); Mingsheng Museum, Shanghai (2011); Times Art Museum, Guangzhou (2011); Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada (2010); Museum of Unknown, Art House, Shanghai (2010); Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), Korea (2009); Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany (2008), Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany (2008); The National Art Museum of China, Beijing (2008); National Musem of Modern Art Osaka, Japan (2008); Museum of Modern Art, Grand-duc Jean, Luxembourg (2008); Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland (2007); Arstrup Fearnleys Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway (2007); San Diego Museum of Art, USA (2007); Serpentine Gallery, London, UK (2006); Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China (2006).
CAKE
2014, Video Animation, 6 min 2 sec
Qiu Anxiong’s Cake combines painting, drawing and claymation with a discordant soundtrack of mechanical noises to offer an exquisitely crafted contemplation on the past, the present, and the relationship between the two. At once timeless and prescient, this work made six years before the viral pandemic of Corona, already evokes a mounting sense of emergency. With heart-rate monitors, sirens, and police radio scanners running throughout the soundtrack, and images of wrestlers rendered in a variety of media, this work can be read as particularly emblematic of our struggles in the age of Corona.
This work was premiered in PANDAMONIUM: Media Art from Shanghai, a co-production by MOMENTUM and Chronus Art Center, at MOMENTUM Berlin (2014).
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PANDAMONIUM: Media Art from Shanghai
Cake marks Qui Anxiong’s first venture into animation with clay. As in the creation of his previous video works, the artist generates thousands of acrylic-on-canvas paintings that are often erased and reworked as the film evolves. These are digitized and organized in a laborious effort that results in the final animated video. Though working in acrylic paint, Qiu makes it look like ink on rice paper and by doing so, has established himself at the forefront of the experimental ink painting movement. In adding clay to his repertoire of visual tools, alongside paint and ink, Qui follows in the footsteps of Jan Svankmajer, the father of Czech surrealist animation. This ability to combine classical aesthetics with contemporary technology distinguishes his work, which owes as much of a debt to South African artist William Kentridge, a pioneer of hand-drawn animation.
Finite Element
2014, Performance Video, 13 min 42 sec
In 2014, Qiu Anxiong undertook a 1-month Artist Residency at MOMENTUM AiR, in conjunction with the PANDAMONIUM exhibition held by MOMENTUM together with Chronus Art Center. Premiering Cake at this exhibition, Qiu also produced a new work for this show, venturing into performance for the very first time in his prodigious practice. Finite Element combines video with live performance and animated paper cut-outs, all overlaid to create a surreal contemporary re-invention of the traditional Chinese art of Shadow Theatre. In this experimental divergence from his normal practice, moving bodies interplay in real-time with moving images projected onto a screen, accompanied by a soundtrack composed by the artist. The final work, lying somewhere between multimedia installation and dance, is the result of a fortuitous accident when 4 Czech performers participating in a Mime Festival, stumbled into the PANDAMONIUM exhibition instead of their rehearsal room, and an instant cooperation was born.
Inspired by this new direction in his practice, upon Qiu Anxiong’s return to Shanghai after his Artist Residency at MOMENTUM, he made a new iteration of this performance for the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (Shanghai MOCA).
Finite Element was premiered in Works on Paper II, the performance program for PANDAMONIUM: Media Art from Shanghai, a co-production by MOMENTUM and Chronus Art Center, at MOMENTUM Berlin (2014).
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Works on Paper II