As an artist, Qiu Zhijie is known for his calligraphy and ink painting, photography, video, installation and performance works. His art is representational of a new kind of experimental communication between the Chinese literati tradition and contemporary art, social participation and the power of self-liberation of art.   

As an art writer, Qiu Zhijie published several books include: The Image and Post Modernism (2002), Give Me a Mask (2003), The Limit of Freedom (2003), The Photography after Photography (2004), On Total Art (2012). Catalogues of his work include: Breaking Through the Ice (2009), The Shape of Time (2007), Archeology of Memory (2006), etc. 

He was also the curator of the first video art exhibition in China in 1996, and curated a series of “Post-sense Sensibility” exhibitions during 1999 and 2005 promoting the young generation of Chinese artists. In 2012 he was the chief curator of the Shanghai Biennale “Reactivation”, in 2017 he is the chief curator of the Chinese Pavilion of the 57Venice Biennale.

He was shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize administered by the Guggenheim Foundation due to his work of The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge Project.He was awarded “Artist of the Year” of the Award of Art China in 2009, and was nominated for the same award in 2016.

His works are collected by major museums and institutions around the world, including the Guggenheim Museum in NYC, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Foundation by Christian Dior,Ullens Foundation,Neuer Berliner Kunstrerein, and the White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney.