Qiu Anxiong

black and white animation film, Shanghai, China
executed in 2007, this work is edition AP2 of a total edition of 10 plus 2AP

United Kingdom, London, Saatchi Gallery, Ink: The Art of China, 19 June - 5 July, 2012, p. 46

Overall in very good condition. This work is complete with a box containing the certificate of authenticity, DVD and Betacam film, each signed by the artist.
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This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued and signed by the artist

As part of the third generation of video and new media artists that emerged in the mid-1990s in China, Qiu Anxiong is remarkable for his unique artistic approach, which stitches together evocative historical imagery, traditional ink painting motifs and modern digital animation techniques.

The relationship between video and traditional Chinese art is not as disparate as one might assume. A principle format of Chinese painting is the horizontal handscroll—a long and narrow picture—that is unrolled section by section when being viewed, similar to the movement of a camera panning from side to side. Having developed a form of modern painting that is not a mere pastiche of tradition, Qiu adeptly employs visual motifs that hearken to the past but address contemporary concerns. Minguo Landscape (LOT 557) is a black and white animation that adopts a Chinese ink painting style to depict nostalgic images of China during the Republican era. Qiu is fascinated with this moment in history—after the Qing dynasty and before the Communist period—that represents an intense crossover between traditional Chinese culture and modern Western civilization. Scenes of the countryside—rural town centers, old Shanghai gramophones, village fishing boats, modern ships, troops in a long march, soldiers preparing for war, children practicing calligraphy—are fluidly integrated to reveal a world filled with conflict, romance, intention and pursuits. Herein, the multimedia artist, internationally acclaimed for his paintings, videos and installations alike, illustrates a poetic idealism for a past that is both admirable and overly idealistic.  

The fact that the monochromatic paintings are all actually oil on canvas provides a unique twist to the ink-like tone and fluidity of the work. "The medium of ink," writes curator Tsong-zung Chang about Qiu's video work, "melting and smoldering into changing chimera of the same landscape, brings across a strong message of the impermanence of the material world and inevitability of change. Like any good Confucian, Qiu has an eye on the cycle of life, and this work is mindful of the power of regeneration, even when the outcome may not be entirely to the benefit of humans."¹

Born in Chengdu in 1972, Qiu Anxiong graduated from the Sichuan Art Academy in 1994 and studied oil painting at the University of Kassel, Germany in 1998. He is a devout Buddhist and self-taught student of the Confucian classics. He created his first video in 2005 and his animations and paintings are consistently exhibited and collected by institutions worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Spencer Museum of Art, Kansas; Museum of University Oxford, UK; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan; Art Museum Hong Kong, China; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo.

¹Chang Tsong-zung, Qiu Anxiong: The World Seen From Afar, Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong, 2007, leaflet