The New Book of Mountains and Seas Part 3
Based on Chinese traditional classic book <Classic of Mountains and Seas>, Qiu Anxiongs animation trilogy questions the onrushing progress of social and technological development and their cost to the environment, to traditional values, to nature-culture as a whole and humans’ role in it.
In Part III, the artist depicts an apocalyptic future in the post-information age, where a deteriorating environment turns humankind itself into virtual reality. A man with a mask falls from a skyscraper, fish eyes serve as surveillance cameras installed throughout the empty street, no human is around. The urban landscape is projected onto circuit boards transported on a production line housed in a dark factory, while the once-existent mountains and seas of nature have become a lost utopia in a virtual spectacle world. The scenarios’ depiction reveals this worldview like a prophecy for the city after the pandemic.
Qiu Anxiong is considered a pioneer in deepening the resonance of animation by introducing the aesthetics of ink painting. This approach serves a non-linear narrative which, in Part III, is most evident. Interlacing imagery of the real with the virtual, the animation reflects on the contemporary world where the delineation between the virtual and the real has become increasingly blurred, and the fictional can augment our sense of what is real.
as part of Protozone12: Syncretic Sites
Qiu Anxiong (*1972) was born in Sichuan (China). He lives and works in Shanghai. His works are in collection at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, MoMA, Art Museum of Brooklyn, New York, Pompidou Center，Kunst Halle Zurich, Spenser Museum, Kansas University, Museum of University Oxford, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Art Museum Hongkong, Astrup Fearnley Musum of Modern Art.
Solo Exhibition at Fosun Art Center in Shanghai (C), Aken Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen (DK) Crow Collection of Asian Art Museum in Dallas (US), OCAT Contemporary Art Museum in Shenzhen (C), Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence KS (US), 4A Art Center in Sydney (AUS), Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo (J).
Group Show (selection): Show and Tell: Stories in Chinese Painting, Metropolitan Museum of Art 2016, “Ink Art, Past as Present in Contemporary China”, Metropolitan Museum of Art 2013, 29th Sao Paulo Biennale, Busan Biennale 2010, The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, 2nd Biennale Thessaloniki, Greece 2009, “11th Cairo Biennale, 3rd Triennial of Guangzhou, 16 Biennale of Sydney, “China Power Station Part3”, Museum d’art modern Grand-duc Jean , Luxembourg, “Video Lounge”, Kunsthaus Zurich “China Power Station Part2”, Arstrup Fearnleys Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, “Animation Painting” San Diego Museum of Art 2007, 6th biennial Shanghai, Shanghai Art Museum 2006
