Qiu Anxiong

Qiu Anxiong (邱雄 Born in 1972 in Sichuan). In 1994 graduated from the Sichuan Art Academy and in 2003 graduated from Kunsthochschule of University Kassel, Germany. Work and live in Shanghai now.

He has been called “one of the quickest rising stars” of a generation of Chinese contemporary artists who exhibit and sell internationally, but who have elected to live and work in China rather than abroad. Difficult to pin down, Qiu's diverse, even hybrid practice moves with apparent ease between painting on canvas and animated film, video art filmed in real time, and installation projects.

Qiu was born in the south-western region of Sichuan in 1972. He studied painting at the Sichuan Art Academy, one of the first institutes in China to embrace modernist painting and western avant-garde art. Qiu not only immersed himself in modern painting, he also opened a club, which became an artists' meeting place and a centre for live underground music

Not only do Qiu's works employ different media but they also broach different frames of reference, switching from an openly socio-critical stance to detached quiescence. Never tentative, Qiu confidently employs the spectacular and performative aspect that characterizes much Chinese contemporary art, but he is equally willing to reveal his more intimate, somewhat bookish side (a comparison with the coexistent artistic personas of Ilya Kabakov might here not be out of place). Qiu's oeuvre runs counter not only to the stereotypical distinction between traditional and modern in Asian art, but also between ancient and modern. According to Chang Tsong-Zung, 'The perspective Qiu brings to the viewer cuts across historical time.' In a timeless landscape, a motorbike suddenly flashes past.

C.V.

Other and former works: