Qin Feng is a leading international artist and one of the foremost representatives of China’s avant-garde movement.
He studied mural painting at the Shandong University of Art and Design in the early 1980s. He founded the Museum of Contemporary Art in Beijing in 2007 and began teaching at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. In 2008, Qin became a Harvard University research associate at the Fairbank Centre for Chinese Studies.
Qin focuses on calligraphy and traditional ink painting, merging Chinese calligraphic techniques with gestures from Western expressionism. For Qin, calligraphy is a motif to engage in broader dialogues, allowing him to question the past and the present, the conflict and concession of civilization, human desire, and to search for self-expression. Qin adopts the traditional mediums of ink and paper, adding elements such as coffee and tea to transform his self-produced linen paper into a golden tone that gives the effect of visual depth and serves as a metaphor for the fusion of the East and West. The thin red lines of paint that encircle the powerful black brushstrokes evoke arteries connecting the past and present and represent the interconnectivity of different cultures.
Qinfu’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In addition, it is in the collections of the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Asia and Pacific Museum, the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, and the Yale University Art Museum.
1961 | Born in Xinjiang, China |
1985 | BA, Shandong University of Art and Design, Jinan, China |
1996-1999 | Moved to Berlin, Germany and Taught at the Berlin University of Art |
2007 | Founded the Beijing Museum of Contemporary Art |
2008 | Nominated and selected as research associate in the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University Present Lives and works in Beijing, China and Boston, USA |
2021 | West Wind East Water Art, Beijing, China |
2020 | “God’s Death” Grand Palazzo Museum, Milano, Italy |
2019 | Blain Southern Gallery, London, UK |
2018 | “Zero World”, Stanford University Art Center, California, USA |
2017 | “Angel”,St. Catherine’s Cathedral, Hamburg, German |
2016 | Michael Goedhuis, London, UK |
2015 | St. Urban Museum of Contemporary Art, Switzerland |
2014 | Galerie du Monde, Hong Kong |
2013 | Goedhuis Contemporary Art Museum, London, UK |
2019 | “Forms of Ink”, Galerie du Monde, Hong Kong |
2018 | NordArt, German Northern Art Center, Germany |
2017 | Galerie du Monde, Hong Kong Pace Prints, New York, USA Crossing Art,New York, USA |
2016 | “British Museum Collection Exhibition”,London, UK |
2015 | 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy |
2014 | Bologna Fiere Shanghai International Contemporary Art Exhibition, Shanghai Exhibition Center, Shanghai, China |
2013 | “Ink – The Art of China”, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA |
2012 | “Ink: The Art of China”, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK |
2011 | Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong |
2010 | “With the ancients”, Museum of Fine Art, Boston, USA |