Born in 1969, in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, China, Qiu Zhijie graduated in 1992 from the Printmaking Department of Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now China Academy of Art, CAA). He is the Vice President and professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts， and professor of the School of Intermedia Art at the China Academy of Art. As an artist, Qiu Zhijie is known for his calligraphy and ink painting, photography, video, installation, and performance works.

Qiu Zhijie has had dozens of solo exhibitions shown in art museums, both domestically and internationally, while also participating in hundreds of group exhibitions. He was also the curator of China’s first video art exhibition Phenomena / Image in 1996. In 2017, he was the chief curator of the Chinese Pavilion of the 57th Venice Biennale.

As an art writer, Qiu Zhijie has published dozens of books including On Total Art, The Image and Post-Modernism, Give Me a Mask, The Limit of Freedom, Post-Photography Photography, Experimentalist, How to Become a Loser, How to Become Ignorant, The Spoiler, etc. Catalogs of his work include Breaking Through the Ice, The Shape of Time, Archeology of Memory, etc.