Portrait: Cover and Clean

2011 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

Qiu Anxiong

location: Shanghai, China
year born: 1972
gender: male
nationality: Chinese
home town: Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

A Portrait: Covering and Cleaning is an installation of six black-and-white video projections. Each video depicts a portrait with features changing continuously and quickly into different persons, animals and symbols. Driven by the evolving contents of the screen itself, this piece showcases the form and material of Qiu Anxiong’s working method, which relies on precisely planned storyboard sketches drawn in pen on A4 paper. After the narrative is fully formed, Qiu transfers each image by painting it onto a small canvas with acrylic, which can be quickly wiped away to prepare for the subsequent image or element to be painted on top. Such process distills an aesthetics of over-painting that drives narrative development through changing logical relationships between material and form rather than plot elements.


Qiu Anxiong creates paintings, sculpture, installation and animation. He is best known for his moving animations implementing the style of traditional Chinese ink painting. His merging of traditional painting into moving images has distinguished his practice at the forefront of contemporary experimental ink painting. He uses this interplay between the past and the present as a strategy to examine the relationship between man and nature, especially how today’s mass urbanization has compromised our values for tradition and the environment.


Colors:



Related works sharing similar palette

Protesters Call for Gaza Ceasefire at Art Basel Miami Beach
© » HYPERALLERGIC

Protesters Call for Gaza Ceasefire at Art Basel Miami Beach Skip to content Protesters installed a banner reading "Let Palestine Live" in front of Art Basel Miami...

Asha Schechter
© » KADIST

Conducted by Devon Bella, this interview was shot on location in Asha Schechter’s Los Angeles studio....

Censorship and “Saving Face” In Cambodia
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Censorship and “Saving Face” In Cambodia | ArtsEquator Skip to content Censorship in Cambodia is often tied to upholding a certain image of the country...

Thaddaeus Ropac and Sprüth Magers achieve six-digit sales at Art Cologne 2023.
© » ARTSY

Thaddaeus Ropac and Sprüth Magers achieve six-digit sales at Art Cologne 2023...

RE-ANIMATED
© » KADIST

Jakob Kudsk Steensen

2018

RE-ANIMATED by Jakob Kudsk Steensen revolves around the haunting sound of the Kauai’O’o, a bird that became extinct in the year of Steensen’s birth...

8 Questions with Alan Oei
© » ARTS EQUATOR

8 Questions with Alan Oei | Arts Equator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Alfonse Chiu November 21, 2018 By Alfonse Chiu (1600 words, five-minute read) As part of ArtsEquator’s interview series profiling artistic directors across the region, we spoke with Alan Oei, AD of The Substation and co-founder and executive director of OH! Open House , on his hopes, his challenges, and how he balances different needs and roles between the two companies...

Noted Hong Kong Art Collectors Make Large Donation of Works to New Museum M+, Mostly by Local Creators - via SCMP
© » LARRY'S LIST

Hong Kong visual culture museum M+ announced it had approved a donation of 90 contemporary artworks, most of them by local creators, from William Lim and his wife Lavina....

No Nepa evening with Nonso, Thom, Mike, Daniel and Ruby
© » KADIST

Sabelo Mlangeni

2019

The Royal House of Allure is a name of a safe house on mainland Lagos where members of the queer community in need of boarding, due to various circumstances, live together...

U Maung Maung’s blast from the past (via The Myanmar Times)
© » ARTS EQUATOR

U Maung Maung’s blast from the past (via The Myanmar Times) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles September 20, 2018 To some people, these maybe nothing more than trash, some useless pieces of equipment from a forgotten past, but to others these are rare gems that brought back some bittersweet memories from not so long ago, when strife of all kinds – from World War I, World War II, up to the cold war era — dominated the world...

Activists Call for Ceasefire in Gaza During Protest Outside Art Basel Miami Beach
© » ARTNEWS

Activists Call for Ceasefire in Gaza in Art Basel Miami Beach Protest – ARTnews.com Skip to main content By Alexandra Martinez Plus Icon Alexandra Martinez View All December 9, 2023 11:15am Protestors from the South Florida Coalition for Palestine demonstrate for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict at Art Basel Miami Beach at the Miami Beach Convention Center...

Michigan Central Station
© » KADIST

Stan Douglas

1997

Michigan Central Station is part of a larger photographic series, Detroit Photos , which includes images of houses, theaters, stadiums, offices, and other municipal structures...

'Antiques Roadshow' Gets A Big Banksy Surprise
© » HUFFINGTON POST

A Banksy work with a complex past recently surfaced on beloved television series "Antiques Roadshow," ArtNet reported....

Assistant designer Solomon
© » KADIST

Sabelo Mlangeni

2019

The Royal House of Allure is a name of a safe house on mainland Lagos where members of the queer community in need of boarding, due to various circumstances, live together...

Study of History IV
© » KADIST

Subas Tamang

2018

Study of History IV by Subas Tamang is an etching and aquatint print based on photographs taken by German photographer Volkmar Wentzel in 1949...

BSA Images Of The Week: 01.07.24
© » BROOKLYN STREET ART

BSA Images Of The Week: 01.07.24 | Brooklyn Street Art BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! The New Year has been good so far, except if your country is in a war and is being pulverized...

Transformative Sales and Celebratory Milestones: Key Stories from Canada’s Fall Auctions
© » MUTUALART

Heffel and Cowley Abbott’s live sales punctuated narratives driving the Canadian art market, from the renewal of Norval Morrisseau to the celebration of......

Execution Changes #22
© » KADIST

Julian Hoeber

2011

Every work in Hoeber’s 2011 series Execution Changes is titled in alphanumeric code...

The Art World This Week: Art Basel Miami, Anselm Kiefer Sculpture Stolen, US Repatriations, and More
© » MUTUALART

Everything you need to know about the most important headlines from the world of art in the last seven days...

Wherein one nods with political sympathy and says I understand you better than you understand yourself, I’m just here to help you help yourself
© » KADIST

Yee I-Lann

2013

Sarcastically titled to call attention to the problematic notions underlying colonialism, this photograph shows hundreds of Native Malaysians seated quietly behind one of their colonial oppressors...

The Rolls-Royce to buy for the Art professional in your life.
© » FAD MAGAZINE

The Rolls-Royce to buy for the Art professional in your life...