Qiu Zhijie

each signed QIU ZHIJIE, titled Monument A1-16, numbered 2/7, and dated 2006

China, Beijing, Long March Space, Archeology of Memory, 7 July – 12 August, 2007 (alternate edition exhibited)
United Kingdom, London, Saatchi Gallery, Ink: The Art of China, 19 June - 5 July, 2012, pp. 122-123
China, Shanghai, Minsheng Art Museum, Linguistic Pavilion, 9 January - 13 March, 2016 (alternate edition exhibited)

Qiu Zhijie: Breaking The Ice: A History, Culture and Art Publishing House, Beijing, China, 2009, p. 129 (alternate edition published)
Kuo, Jason C., Chinese Ink Painting Now, Distributed Art Publishers, New York, USA; Timezone 8, Hong Kong, China, 2010, pp. 134-135

Overall in very good condition. Framed size: 92.5 x 92.5 cm; 36 3/8 x 36 3/8 in. each. This work is accompanied with a framed photograph documenting the art work creation process.
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Qiu Zhijie is one of China’s foremost conceptual artists, whose works encompass printmaking, photography, video, calligraphy, installation and performance. Trained as a calligrapher and a graduate of the printmaking department at The National Academy of Fine art, Hangzhou, Qiu’s works on paper are subject to the legacy of ancient Chinese art yet consistently provoke the contemporary viewer to reconsider their roots. He can be best described as a cultural archaeologist who thoughtfully presents the historical past in an effort to better understand the future. His various conceptual works have been featured in over a hundred institutions and exhibitions around the world, including the 53^rd Venice Biennale, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, J.Paul Getty Museum, Valencia Institute of Modern Art, Norwegian National Museum of Contemporary Art, Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In the tradition of collecting ink rubbings of stone carved calligraphy on paper, Qiu collects and preserves various texts that were intended for public transmission. However, for each text he carves his own layer of concrete with revolutionary slogans and with script styles ranging from ancient oracle script to Mao Zedong-styled calligraphy. Once each layer is dry and rubbings are made, a new layer of concrete is poured, thus permanently erasing the previously etched text and making way for another layer. The resulting objects are a concrete block of buried texts and a set of ink rubbings on paper. Similar to the artist's other performance/installation works, the Monument series is meant to be a record of an act of subversion and not merely a static object created for aesthetic purposes. By challenging the convention of ink rubbing and modifying the methods of propaganda, Qiu’s defines a relationship between technique and its ideology. It provides a powerful commentary on China's political history and actively questions the role of monuments in the collective memory.