About Qiu Yi

Qiu Yi was born in Yantai, China, in 1982. He graduated in Sculpture from the Shandong University of Arts. In 2011 he moved to Florence, where he completed his Master in "Visual Arts and New Expressive Languages" at the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence (Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze). He is the Special Advisor on International Development of the National Art Museum of China, President of the Association of Contemporary Art and Culture China and Italy (Associazione di Arte e Cultura Contemporanea Cina e Italia), and the Corresponding Academician of the Sculpture Class of the Academy of the Arts of Drawing in Italy (Accademia delle Arti del Disegno).   

In addition to the exhibitions in China, his sculptures and installations have been exhibited in many cities around the world: University of Ohio, USA (2007); Ming Zhi, Japan (2007); Art Center and Museum Park of Brajo Fuso, Perugia (2011); Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence (2012); Academy of the Arts of Drawing (Accademia delle Arti del Disegno), Palazzo dei Beccai, Florence (2012); Murate Exhibition Center, Florence (2013); Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art, Prato (2013); Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (2014); National Library, Turin, (2015); Museum of Villa Doria Pamphili, Rome (2015); National Historical Museum of Albania, Tirana (2015). Academy of Georgofili (Accademia dei Georgofili), Florence (2019); "Full and Empty” Villa Rospigliosi, Prato (2019); "The Dream of the Butterfly from ZHUANG-ZI” Chiesanuova Cemetery (Cimitero di Chiesanuova), Prato (2020); “Passages” Museum of Palazzo Datini, Prato (2020-2021); "A Thousand Words” Gallery of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, Florence (2021)；“WERDEN. FROM MICHELANGELO TO”, Tiroler Landesmuseen, Innsbruck, Austria(2021).   

In 2016 he founded the Association of Contemporary Art and Culture China and Italy (Associazione di Arte e Cultura Contemporanea Cina e Italia) in Florence, of which he is the president, and which has organized various exhibitions: History and Sharing: Italy-China Sculpture Exhibition, Museo della Misericordia, Florence (2016); Art and Technology: Italian Contemporary Art, Lan Wan Museum, Qingdao, China (2017); Between Earth and Sky: Multiform Nature, Contemporary Chinese Ink Painting, Academy of Georgofili (Accademia dei Georgofili), Florence (2018); The Road of Sculpture,  (Accademia delle Arti del Disegno) in Florence, Chinese National Academy of Sculpture, Chinese National Academy of Arts, Qingdao, China, (2018); Intertwining of Roots: Italy-China Contemporary Art Exhibition, Academy of Georgofili (Accademia dei Georgofili), Florence (2019); Two Cultures, One Space: 2nd Italian Contemporary Art Exhibition, Chinese National Academy of Sculpture, Chinese National Academy of Arts, Qingdao, China (2020).   

He was awarded the Gold Prize of the “OUCBI Visual Art Contest-China Through Your Eyes”, Ohio, USA (2007) and the Prize of the Jury of the Premio Firenze (Premio della Giuria Arti Visive del Premio Firenze), Florence, Italy (2019). He was invited as the speaker in the Wu Weishan International Sculpture Art Symposium, National Museum of China, Beijing (2019) and invited to participate in the 35th World Conference on Art History - "International Committee for the History of Art (Comité international d'Histoire de l 'Art)", Florence, Italy; He took the artist residency project in the Tuscany Region “La Città Continua” (2020); He won the Ponte Vecchio Award (2022).