K11 Art Foundation

Zhou Xiaohu (b. 1960, Changzhou) is a pioneer of video animation in China and one of the first artists to work sculpturally with this medium. Although originally trained as an oil painter, he began using computers as an artistic tool in 1997. As one of China’s most well-known and most prolific contemporary artists, he specializes in inducing confusion and bafflement, making viewers question the evidence of their senses and their assumptions about the so-called ‘facts’. He has since experimented with stop-frame video animation, video installation and computer-gaming software, whereby the interlayering of images between moving pictures and real objects has become his signature style. Working across performance, photography, installation, sculpture, video, and animation, Zhou’s practice reflects the documentation of history in a digital age, where particular details become privileged, fabricated, altered, and/or omitted. Zhou’s recent shows include his participation in Tate Liverpool’s The Real Thing: Contemporary Art from China (2007) and solo-exhibitions at Long March Space in Beijing (2009-10) and at BizArt Center in Shanghai.