The China Project

123 Three Decades: The Contemporary Chinese Collection QIU Zhijie From the early 1980s, Qiu Zhijie studied the works of European philosophers including Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean Baudrillard, when access to such material in China became less restricted. An outstanding student, he received faculty support from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now the China Academy of Art) in Hangzhou to travel abroad in 1989, when the events of 4 June 1989 in Tiananmen Square intervened. In response to these events, Qiu undertook a series of ‘anti-establishment’ activities that interrogated individuality and identity — subjects that remain central to his practice. Today, Qiu is an important member of the experimental Avant-garde in China. He is also an active public speaker, provocateur and curator. Qiu’s examination of the individual is played out in relation to time, ritual and the physical nature of the human body. In his short film Landscape 1999, Qiu’s face is the anchor around which whirls a multitude of images of disparate places: London, Berlin, Beijing, an old Chinese temple, and then, suddenly, the harsh, white light of a gallery. The spherical frame is a metaphor for the compass, an instrument with cosmological significance in traditional Chinese culture. A Chinese invention, the compass historically represented China as the centre of the universe, and was seen as synthesising the cosmic harmonies between man and nature. This film condenses time and space through fast-forward sequences placing Qiu’s self-portrait in the foreground — the only constant point of reference. The prominence of Qiu’s face situates the fast-forward flux as external to the physical body, with the individual passively experiencing the changing environment. The video work See you again, see you again 1996–2003 follows the life of a Chinese man whose occupation is to paint pictures of the dead, working from the photographic portraits that are a required part of traditional Chinese burial practice. Surrounded by images of transfixed black and white faces pinned to the wall, his deft brushwork creates a compelling likeness. Qiu’s camera pans across the scene, pausing as it moves over the objects in his small, street-side studio. This short video documents the old man’s livelihood — an increasingly obsolescent trade in modern China. For how long will he continue to receive orders for his hand-drawn portraits of the dead? The video also conveys a complex spiritual reality in the overlay of Minnan hua — chanting in a local Fujian Province dialect. The words ‘see you again, see you again’ are sung repeatedly as the image moves from the portraits on the wall, to bones in a glass case in a museum, to the rhythmic markings of a red pen, the latter seeming to trace the persistence of a heartbeat. Qiu Zhijie examines memory and death, showing acts of remembrance as both material and spiritual. opposite Landscape (stills) 1999 Mini DV, 8:40 minutes, colour, stereo / Purchased 2004. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant above See you again, see you again (still) 1996–2003 Mini DV, 10:30 minutes, colour, stereo / Purchased 2004. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant