Qiu Deshu

Qiu Deshu (; born 1948), is a Chinese contemporary artist. He is best known for founding Caocao (Grass Grass) Group, an artist collective which endeavored to promote artistic originality, in 1979.

Early life

Qiu Deshu grew up in the former Shanghai French Concession, where he attended after-school art classes at the Luwan District Children's Palace. There, he developed his enthusiasm and passion for art by studying drawing, Western painting, and ink painting. Qiu Deshu's artistic career began as an "artist-worker" during the Cultural Revolution. While Qiu worked as a factory worker at a leather factory which later became a plastics factory, he kept a sketchbook in his pocket and drew portraits of his colleagues during breaks at the factory. Between 1970 and 1973, Qiu attended the Shanghai Art School (上海美術專科學校) for "worker training", during which he created political cartoons with his classmates and teachers.

Career

Caocao (Grass Grass) Group

In 1977, he moved from the factory to the Luwan District Cultural Palace, where he curated a series of exhibitions. He later established Caocao (meaning: Grass Grass) group, a collective consisting of twelve artists. The name Caocao was chosen as it symbolizes the "strength of life", for grass grows almost everywhere and is a symbol of hope. The three major goals of Caocao Group were independent spirit, independent technique, and independent style.

Turning away from Socialist Realism, the Caocao group rejected the use of ink painting as a political gesture of nationalism. They instead associated with the ideology of Chinese literati art, which was considered as a cultural relic to the Maoist regime. At the same time, they were also eager explorers of modernism, celebrating both forms of art.

The group exhibited at the Luwan District Cultural Palace in February, 1980. The exhibition, titled Painting for the '80s, included watercolors and traditional paintings, as well as experimental works reminiscent of the Cubist and Expressionist works the artists had seen in books. However, the authorities soon shut down the exhibition and condemned it, along with the Grass Group itself, as a "typical example of bourgeois liberalism in the Luwan District Cultural System." Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; Taichung Provincial Art Museum, Taichung.