Qiu Zhijie : journeys without arrivals

Qiu Zhijie (1969, Zhangzhou) experienced the rapid changes in Chinese society over the last decades as it has opened itself up to economic and cultural globalisation. As the largest state in the world, developments in the People’s Republic will always affect the whole planet, but its recent history is one of learning from elsewhere as much as innovating from within. Such intercultural encounters are the basis for much of Qiu’s work. He draws on certain pictorial traditions, from calligraphy to handicraft techniques, and pushes them into the present. There, they are seen not as victims of a new age, but as systems of thinking that can account for what is happening today at least as much as the traditions of western modernist aesthetics. It is in this context that he represents an ideal example of an artist as a go-between, whose broad ideas and engagements—as an artist, merchant, teacher and political activist—become strong, resolute and profound gestures/images of the contemporary world.