Person
Artist
Qiu Jiongjiong
邱炯炯
Date of birth
1977
Place Of birth
Leshan, Sichuan, China
Biography
Born in Leshan, Sichuan Province in 1977, into a family of performers that he describes as ‘the most glorious theatrical troupe in the history of Sichuan opera’, artist and independent film-maker Qiu Jiongjiong gave up his formal education at the age of seventeen after one year of senior high school, and, seeking the bohemian life of an artist, he went to Beijing. Qiu studied painting in the informal context of a private art college, where he was taught by an artist who had graduated from the famous ‘Fourth Studio’ of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Together with fellow students, and assisted by their teacher Li Yanxiu, Qiu Jiongjiong rented a space in No. 182 Middle School in the guise of establishing a junior college class. There the group set up an unofficial art studio, where they painted ‘like there was a raging fire’. Later, Qiu began to make documentary films. His important 2009-2010 documentary, Madame, presents the drag performer Madame Bilan de Linphel, an iconic figure of Beijing’s underground nightclub scene who committed suicide in 2010. Qiu Jiongjiong lives and works in Beijing.
