Qiu Zhijie

Qiu Zhijie is not just an internationally established artist but also a key point of reference on the Chinese art scene. His artistic practice embraces calligraphy, poetry, teaching, criticism and curating. Thinker, activist and cartographer, Qiu is a multi-faceted intellectual figure, and his work is articulated through an all-inclusive practice which in Chinese is called Guangtong art. The term encompasses various different meanings. It is the expression of individual freedom whilst respecting social responsibilities,

it is the concurrence between rational analysis and impulse, it is the harmonic interaction between the different spheres of action in which we engage with. And finally it is the reciprocally advantageous fellowship between the explosive experience of making art and the experience of everyday living. “Art does not just concern the work produced, but also the more general environment to which the work reacts; it is a complete practice,”

says the artist. It cannot but engage, then, with real life, society, politics and history, both that of our own age and that of the past.

Racing Against Time, the project conceived by the artist for the gallery’s large ground-floor rooms, takes the form of an archaeological site: “It is like a palaeontological dig and a time machine of humanity. Looking back in time to the dinosaur kingdom, the bird kingdom and the mammal kingdom, the whole history of evolution is based on the survival of the fittest. The theme of this exhibition is the battle of powers and the war between empires. It dwells upon the dichotomy of these two logics”, comments Qiu.