Cui Xiuwen (1970-2018)
Cui Xiuwen was born in 1970 in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China. Cui graduated from fine arts department of Northeast normal university in 1990 and from the central academy of fine arts in Beijing in 1996. Cui passed away on August 1, 2018 after a long illness.
Available Cui Xiuwen works:
Chinese feminism
Cui Xiuwen creates work with a message or a story. Cui was a member of the Chinese feminist movement, but in an interview she stated about feminism: I think it's very restrictive. It just seems like a feature of the art market and very hard to escape.
Cui is best known, or in China, notorious for her work Ladies' Room from 2000. Cui Xiuwen hid a spy camera in the bathroom of a popular 'karaoke club' in Beijing, which captured conversations and candid moments of local call girls getting ready for customers.
Most of Xiuwen’s work features young women.
Buddhist cosmology
For Cui Xiuwen art was a vehicle, not so much the ultimate goal. Where she mainly painted in the beginning of her artistry, she quickly developed into the medium of video and photography because her thought developed faster than her painting technique could keep up. Her earlier works aspirated desires but her expressions quickly became softer and more subtle and sometimes even abstract. A line of thought that is in line with Buddhism. A quote from Cui: Buddhism continually guides my mind, and my life transcends to a higher elevation.
Angel series
In the two works from the Angel series offered by Wiegersma Consultancy & Expertise one sees unmarried pregnant girls in a white dress, which is a taboo in China. This work comments on the double standards and ill-treatment of women in China.
Recognition
Cui Xiuwen was an influential modern Chinese artists, she received many awards.
She had many exhibitions in important museums like the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France in 2003, the MoMA PS1 in New York, NY 2006, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Gwacheon, Korea in 2007, the National Museum of China in Beijing, China in 2009, the Long Museum in Shanghai, China in 2016 and the Museo dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy in 2017.
Cui Xiuwen’s work is represented by many museums around the world like the Tate Modern in the UK, Brooklyn Museum in NY, the Ullens Foundation in Belgium; and the National Art Museum of China. Cui was the first Chinese artist to exhibit at Tate Modern, in 2004.