Zhu Jinshi, born in 1954, is a Chinese-born German artist who stands as a pioneering figure in both Chinese abstract art and installation art. Beginning his journey into abstract painting in the early 1980s, he moved to Berlin in 1986, where he furthered his experimentation with performance, installation, and conceptual art. Zhu returned to China in 1994 and split his time between Berlin and Beijing until 2010. Today, he lives and works in Beijing.
Over the past four decades, Zhu’s artistic practice has developed through two distinct but often interwoven paths—abstract painting and conceptual installation art. While his installations are distinct from his paintings, they have profoundly influenced each other. Only by considering both together can one truly grasp the unique aesthetic power of his work.
Zhu’s early paintings were influenced by modernism, with three of his pieces featured in China’s first avant-garde exhibition, the Stars Group Exhibition, in 1979. As one of China’s first abstract artists, he began by experimenting with random brushstrokes and limited colors. He gradually refined his style into what is known as his “thick painting” technique, a method characterized by the use of heavy layers of color and thick paint—a style he continues to use today.
Unlike the post-1990s Western neo-geometric abstract styles, Zhu’s work reflects a deep consideration of the philosophical and technical differences between Eastern and Western art practices. His exposure to the works of Gerhard Richter, Julian Schnabel, Per Kirkeby, and Kazuo Shiraga during the 1980s left an impression on him, but by the 2000s, Zhu identified more with contemporary artists like Albert Oehlen and Cecily Brown. His focus shifted from traditional abstraction to a more personal and experience-driven approach to painting, eschewing established norms.
Art critic and professor Gao Minglu highlights the distinctiveness of Zhu’s approach, noting that “the expressive power of Zhu Jinshi’s ‘thick paintings’ comes not from the rhythm of brushstrokes, but from the stubbornness and fluidity of the materials themselves.” Zhu’s methods are characterized by the use of unconventional tools—palettes, wall trowels, wooden shovels, and large brushes—to apply dense layers of paint. His works are more sculptural than two-dimensional; the gaps, fractures, and varying textures create a self-contained visual system that transforms his paintings into monumental objects, a fusion of spatial and conceptual art.
Zhu’s engagement with conceptual art, performance, and installation grew during his time in Germany, beginning in the late 1980s. He sought to break away from formalist approaches and instead incorporated social commentary into his work. In 1988, he initiated the “FANG ZHEN” project, establishing a cubic meter of linen in Berlin and a cubic meter of rice paper in Beijing, linking the two cities through four stages: display, visitation, participation, and barriers. In 1989, he created Exile, a raft made of Chinese soy sauce bottles, reflecting his search for cultural identity. During the 1990s, when public exhibition spaces in China were scarce, Zhu’s home in Beijing became a hub for other artists and a vital part of the local art scene.
Zhu gained international recognition for his innovative use of materials like rice paper and bamboo in his installations. In works such as Impermanence, Boat, and Tao of Xuan Paper, he transformed the delicate, soft nature of rice paper into architectural structures, creating complex, tough forms that transcended the paper's cultural and physical properties. In these works, space itself becomes an integral part of the art, shifting from the private to the public, and extending throughout the exhibition space to create a unique, evolving structural landscape. Zhu’s Rice Paper Pagoda, a large-scale installation, was featured at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024 as part of the China Pavilion’s exhibition Atlas: Harmony in Diversity.
As one of China’s earliest practitioners of both abstract and installation art, Zhu Jinshi’s works continue to evolve with great vitality, unaffected by time or medium. His art transcends geographical and cultural boundaries, offering a personal history of artistic evolution set against the backdrop of a globalized, contemporary culture.
Zhu’s solo exhibitions include Ganjiakou 303 (2018) at Pearl Lam Galleries, Shanghai; Detached from Colour (2016) at Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong; Zhu Jinshi (2015–16) at the Yuan Art Museum, Beijing; Zhu Jinshi (2016) at Blum & Poe, New York; Performance in Paint: Zhu Jinshi (2015) at the Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing; and Simplicity (2014) at Pearl Lam Galleries, Singapore, among others.
His works have also appeared in numerous group exhibitions, including The Allure of Matter: Material Art from China (2020) at the Smart Museum of Art and Wrightwood 659 in Chicago; A Fairy Tale of Red Times (2019) at the National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne; and 28 Chinese (2015) at the San Antonio Museum of Art and the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, as well as major exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, and Istanbul. Zhu Jinshi’s art is part of prestigious public and private collections worldwide.
