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:



Other related works, blended automatically

Unregistered City series #1 #2 #7
© » KADIST

Jiang Pengyi

2008

Unregistered City is a series of eight photographs depicting different scenes of a vacant, apparently post-apocalyptic city: Some are covered by dust and others are submerged by water...

Pleasant Sensation Passing Through Flesh - 3
© » KADIST

Yang Zhenzhong

2012

Peasant Sensation Passing Through Flesh – 3 consists of a massage chair fixed to a wall...

The Result of 1000 Pieces
© » KADIST

Lin Yilin

1994

All his artworks utilize the use of body – the artist’s own body and that of others...

Lift with care
© » KADIST

Hu Yun

2013

This research-based artwork acts as a memorial to early twentieth century European exploration of China...

I can’t believe we are still protesting
© » KADIST

Wong Wai Yin

2021

Drawn from the widely circulated images of protests around the world in support of women rights and racial equality, the phrase I can’t believe we are still protesting is both the title of Wong Wai Yin’s photographic series and a reference to similar messages seen on protest signages...

Perro en Tlalpan (Dog in Tlalpan)
© » KADIST

Gabriel Orozco

1992

Gabriel Orozco often documents found situations in the natural or urban landscape...

Ink Diary
© » KADIST

Chen Shaoxiong

2006

After engaging primarily with video and photography for more than a decade, Chen turned to painting to explore the issue of urban change and memories—both personal and collective...

SpringValle_ber_girls
© » KADIST

Petra Cortright

2012

In the flash animation SpringValle_ber_girls , Petra Cortright collages together surreal scenes out of unnaturally idyllic desktop screensavers with equally unreal computer-generated women that pop in and out of the landscape...

The Tower of Babel: Destruction
© » KADIST

Du Zhenjun

2010

The Tower of Babel is an installation of large-format photographs that forces the audience to occupy a central position through its monumental scale...

Phenomena
© » KADIST

Yang Xinguang

2009

Although seemingly unadorned at first glance, Yang Xinguang’s sculptural work Phenomena (2009) employs minimalist aesthetics as a means of gesturing towards the various commonalities and conflicts between civilization and the natural world...

21 Ke (21 Grams)
© » KADIST

Sun Xun

2010

Sun’s animated film 21 Ke (21 Grams) is based on the 1907 research by the American physician Dr...

Two videos, three photographs, several related masterpieces, and American Art
© » KADIST

Yan Xing

2013

The title of this series – Two videos, three photographs, several related masterpieces and American art – is paradoxical, suggesting the work is conceived in relation to its medium and a situation in art history and the region of the world in which it was made...

The Tower of Babel: The Carnaval
© » KADIST

Du Zhenjun

2010

The Tower of Babel is an installation of large-format photographs that forces the audience to occupy a central position through its monumental scale...

From the series the Old and the New (XI)
© » KADIST

Carlos Garaicoa

2010

From the series the Old and the New (XI) by Carlos Garaicoa belongs to the series Lo viejo y lo nuevo / Das Alte und das Neue (The Old and the New) which was first exhibited in 2010 at Barbara Gross Gallery in Germany...

Made in Heaven
© » KADIST

Mark Leckey

2004

In Made In Heaven , we are face to face with a sculptural apparition, a divine visitation in the artist’s studio...

Sign series, #1, #2, #3
© » KADIST

Bjorn Copeland

2009

Sign #1 , Sign #2 , Sign #3 were included in “Found Object Assembly”, Copeland’s 2009 solo show at Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco...

A Gust of Wind
© » KADIST

Zhang Peili

2008

In the video installation A Gust of Wind , Zhang continues to explore notions of perspective and melds them seamlessly with a veiled but incisive social critique...

Sexy
© » KADIST

Yan Xing

2011

Sexy shows Yan Xing unsuccessfully trying to reach orgasm in freezing temperatures among the falling rocks and howling winds of a precarious canyon...