Zhou Tiehai: An Other History

Zhou Tiehai was born in Shanghai in 1966 and still resides there today. In recent years, he has become one of the most important Chinese artists in the international contemporary art world. He is a wave maker and a trend seller, having support of internationally significant collectors, curators and critics and been recognized as a spokesman for new artistic concepts.

Zhou Tiehai works in opposition to prevailing norms, from the rebellious gestures of his youth to his more recent oppositional stance toward the global art world.

Zhou regards himself as an international, not so much a Chinese artist, rejecting the still prevalent notion of the “exoticism” of Chinese contemporary art.

Like the saying that “the hard thing is to stay good for a whole lifetime”, Zhou is a special case, having been engaged throughout his career in the similarly difficult work of maintaining a consistent position, offering at every turn timely and relevant critique of the development of contemporary art even as others were defeated or fell out the game.

His technique remains stable from work to work as his emblems remains clear. For example, the widely known logo of western civilization Joe Camel in his “Camel series” or his “Placebo” series. In other works he uses modern airbrush techniques to render traditional Chinese landscape paintings, expressing his own woes about the newly fashionable ancient Eastern civilization in his “Chinese Painting Series”- “Tonic”.

Zhou Tiehai is said to be an elusive genius, whose sagacity and humor permeate at every opening. A classic example of this is the work he exhibited at the 2004 Shanghai Biennale, “Airport”, in which he broadcast the sounds of an airport across the exhibition venue, such that in every corner of the museum, one could hear a disembodied voice announcing departures to cities all over the world.

At the end, he plays the role of an independent-minded artist offering unique insight into art, the world, and humans generally.

In this exhibition, the artist will offer the viewer an outspoken, rich, lively, colorful and emotional display. The art-going public in Shanghai will gain from it sense of both the reality of an alternative history and its potential.

The exhibition is curated by Zhang Qing, Shanghai Art Museum deputy director and Chief Coordinator of the Shanghai Biennale 06.

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Zhou Tiehai: An Other History
Kurator: Zhang Qing