Qiu Xiaofei & Alexis Lowry on ‘Qiu Xiaofei. The Theater of Wither and Thrive’
•February 27, 2026
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Why It Matters
The show demonstrates how Chinese artists are redefining global contemporary art by weaving personal loss with collective history, creating works that resonate both culturally and commercially.
Key Takeaways
- •Qiu Xiaofei blends personal loss with geopolitical history.
- •Exhibition loops themes of life, death, regeneration, decay.
- •Harbin’s multicultural past informs his layered architectural canvases.
- •Color palette reflects bodily decay and enduring spiritual essence.
- •Literary and operatic references shape narrative, theatrical spatial logic.
Summary
The video records a curatorial conversation about Qiu Xiaofei’s new show, “The Theater of Wither and Thrive,” at Hower and Worth. Curator Alexis Lowry frames the exhibition as a deeply personal response to the artist’s family trauma—a father’s death coinciding with the birth of his son—while situating his practice within the broader cultural cross‑currents of his hometown Harbin, a former Russian‑built frontier city. Key insights include the way Qiu’s paintings fuse familial memory with the layered histories of Harbin’s architecture, Soviet‑era ruins, and Chinese opera set design inherited from his father. The work’s visual language draws on Chinese landscape traditions, Vienna Secession motifs, and literary allusions—from James Joyce’s “The Dead” to Emily Dickinson—while a striking, almost phosphorescent palette underscores the tension between bodily decay and an enduring spiritual core. Notable moments from the dialogue feature Qiu describing his discovery of childhood photographs as a “wormhole” linking past, present, and future, and his use of the Lohan figure to symbolize his father’s transition from flesh to spirit. He also explains that the horizon line in each canvas functions as a theatrical stage, and that the recurring four‑season series mirrors Harbin’s climate and the cyclical nature of life. The exhibition signals a maturation in contemporary Chinese art, where personal narrative, geopolitical memory, and high‑brow art‑historical references converge. For collectors and institutions, Qiu’s synthesis offers a compelling lens on China’s post‑Mao identity and suggests a market appetite for works that negotiate intimate storytelling with grand historical discourse.
Original Description
On the opening night of ‘Qiu Xiaofei. The Theater of Wither and Thrive,’ we joined the artist and Senior Curatorial Director Alexis Lowry for a walkthrough of the exhibition.
‘Qiu Xiaofei. The Theater of Wither and Thrive’ presents a new body of oil paintings and works on paper, inspired by the discovery of previously unknown family photographs following his father’s passing. From this intimate finding, the exhibition expands into a broader meditation that moves from the vast, unpredictable transformations of the world to the subtle and elusive origins of personal memory.
Dedicated to giving form to the invisible, Qiu’s practice is informed by Chinese cultural and philosophical traditions as well as by the work of Western poets such as Robert Lowell and Emily Dickinson. Through vivid, dreamlike imagery, experiences of loss and remembrance are distilled into a universal theatre of life, in which presence and absence, flourishing and decline, history and individual emotion unfold in a silent yet monumental drama.
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Hauser & Wirth is an international contemporary and modern art gallery with spaces in Zurich, London, Somerset, New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Gstaad, St. Moritz, Monaco, Menorca, Paris and Basel.
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