Qiu Zhijie

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Qiu Zhijie (born 1969) is a contemporary Chinese artist who works primarily in video and photography. Overall, Qiu Zhijie's work suggests the struggle between the forces of destiny and self-assertion. Other common themes are social fragmentation and transience.^[1]

Zhijie was born in 1969 in Fujian province. In 1992, he graduated from Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, Hangzhou. He now lives and works in Beijing.

The artist's break-through exhibition was in 1992 with China's New Art, Post-1989 at the Hanart Gallery and Hong Kong Arts Centre. By 1999, his work began receiving overseas interest with his inclusion in Revolutionary Capitals: Beijing-London at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.

In 2005, his work was exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum's Between Past And Future: New Photography And Video From China, including Tattoo 1, which explores Qiu Zhijie's assertion that in our media-saturated age, "signs and codes have overpowered actual human beings, and our bodies have become merely their vehicles." The character bu — meaning "no" — is written across the artist's body and on the wall behind him, creating the illusion that it floats free of the body.