By Shu Kewen

A well-respected critic who advocates formal elegance has recently chastised experimental art, which has aroused fury among many artists. Qiu Zhijie,

upon returning from an exhibition in Japan , immediately repudiates such criticism, "Think about elegance in the Western tradition, which is not just

about how to hold your forks and knives at meal time any more. Social customs such as "ladies first" are so prevalent that even an old country

woman can learn it in a year and half. Refinement is no longer defined by how you interact socially, but by the moral attitude of 慖 do not agree with

what you say, but I will defend to death your right to express your opinion.? His comments have prompted many artists at discussion tables and

chat rooms to ask whether he has won the argument or not. In fact, as Qiu Zhijie states in his essay, "avant garde" is an eulogistic term used in the

20th century in relation to social evolutionary theories. As various successful and unsuccessful Utopian experiments fade with the passing of the

20th century, it is time to face experimental art with more maturity and compassion.

Such comments inevitably invite suspicion that Qiu is defending his career as an experimental artist. Very few artists have led a long career immersed

in the imaginary games of experiments as he has. When he was first noticed by the art world, he painted dreamy figures on large sheets of glass,

juxtaposing reality and illusion with the mutual refection between glasses. He destroyed all the glasses, however, after the show, since they were

indeed illusion.

In 1990, Qiu Zhijie completed writing the "Lan Ting Xu" a thousand times on the same sheet of paper. The first piece certainly looked very much like

calligraphy. As the writing continued, however, the piece got more and more muddled until it became a black blob. Some critics highly praise this

piece, because it illustrates visually the hopeless disfiguration of an ancient culture through thousands of years of repetition. For Qiu himself,

the piece is about how repetition changes sensation. In the beginning it is calligraphy, but gradually it becomes performance, and then evolves into a

struggle as to whether to continue till the thousandth time, and finally turns into worry over whether people will believe the story. So the piece

evolves into a game about whether or not to preserve traditional culture. Everyone can see that with the evolution from pens to keyboards, the

practicality of calligraphy has almost disappeared. Those who obtain a sense of joy from the game are also fewer and fewer. Qiu also realizes that

the game is quite contrary to the original idea of calligraphy, so he abandons it.

In 1997, Qiu Zhijie organized and participated in a famous show titled "Post-Sensationalism". The reason that the show got a lot of attention was

very much due to the introduction of the first human corpus into the exhibition space. Qiu 抯 eccentricity is almost unbearable now. His

enthusiasm for experimentation, however, saves him again, so that he does not stop at this point, but moves on to new territories in search for more

fitting expressions.

Qiu Zhijie is sometimes called "Crazy Qiu". He displays similar insanity in his artistic experiments as in real life. In the span of a few years, he

has exhibited videos, installations, film, calligraphy and various performances. Each piece seems to be done hastily and changes radically.

He relies on these works to attract the attention of the art world and approaches ever closer the source that inspires him to continue to

experiment.

San Lian Weekly, Issue No. 10, 2001

Translation by Dong Qiu

Calligraphy Is Not Art

By Shu Kewen

Qiu Zhijie just completed a show in Tokyo , Japan with a set of three pieces.

The word "instruct" was filled with sentimentality and hysteria which made people wonder if the idea had possessed him.

Perhaps it is not reasonable to connect traditional Chinese culture with Qiu Zhijie experimental art. His many works, however, betray a persistent

sense of melancholy that has dominated the old culture. So my interview begins from this observation.

Question: Many of your works are calligraphy, and yet they are not about calligraphy, but about the meaning behind the words?

Answer: For me, calligraphy only becomes calligraphy when it is done in complete immersion in the state of writing. It is not about the art form.

The three best pieces of Chinese calligraphy are all drafts and written at a moment of extreme emotional turmoil. The masters were not thinking about

art at all. The reason that calligraphy has achieved such a high status in China , and even become an art form is that its particularities have become

as indispensable a part of life as speech, and have intermingled with the Chinese way of living and taste. For example, the Buddhist monk Hongyi has

renounced worldly affairs, operas, and women, but he could not live without calligraphy.

Question: Why is it an indispensable part of life? I myself do not practice calligraphy.

Answer: If you look at it as art, then of course it is not so great. The merit of Chinese calligraphy lies in the act of copying. Of course I can

also find joy in the art form. This is an internal game within the traditional culture, and it will become more and more graceful. But such is

not the focus of my work. I concentrate on contemporary art, on expressing my truest cultural sentiments.

Question: So what are the truest sentiments for you? Answer: " he imprint of birds?claws on a patch of snow? The sense of

life fleeting through time and space is very much woven into the Chinese psyche. It does not merely belong to the literati class, but is experienced

intensely in daily lives. So to write is not to turn it into an art form.

I want to perform the act subjectively.

Question: Is this why you show the change of time in a film about calendars, and the lighting and distinguishing of a match in a video?

Answer: This is to use Chinese characters to stimulate a sense of the vicissitudes of life in a physical and active way.

Question: Are you playing the Chinese card when you exhibit your characters abroad?

Answer: Chen Danqing has asked, you don 抰 want to play the American card, do you?

Question: What does it mean to people who do not understand calligraphy?

Answer: When I use the regular form, and not the running form of calligraphy, I have in mind what these characters mean to the Chinese. I

work with conceptual construct, not pure visual stimulation. I made a silent bell in Japan . What was meant to make sound did not make sound, and

had characters related to sound written over it, so that a meaningful construct was created between the bell and the characters. I also write

only parts of the characters, and put them together in all possible combinations. For example, I have a sheet full of various characters with

the word "ghost" in them, or every word with "mouth" in it. So when a Chinese sees them he understands.

Question: Then why exhibit abroad?

Answer: To show off. A culture that cannot be understood by foreigners is not worthy of respect. When the parts that cannot be translated get lost,

the culture gets lost. I can turn them into abstract paintings, but I prefer to show the broken pieces rather than the concocted whole.