Introduction

As a pioneer of the practice of video art in China, Zhu Jia always tries to capture ordinary scenes through distinctive methods of practice. He tends to record the most mundane people and phenomena, but also actively presents a world outside the viewing habits. In his 1994 piece Forever, which has participated in several international exhibitions, Zhu attached a camera to the left wheel of a bicycle. The artist rode this bicycle over 10km around the city of Beijing, and unlike ordinary videos, he captured the ever-changing world with an unfamiliar perspective in a dizzying state. In the work Did They Have Sexual Relation? (1995) he held up a sign, posing this very question in front of busy people and even strangers. By establishing these fictitious relationships, the overall artist discusses different people's attitudes towards the sensitive issue of sex in society.

Zhu Jia, born in 1963 in Beijing, graduated from China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1988, currently works and resides in Los Angeles and Beijing. Selected exhibitions include: Slide/Show, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2023); Zhu Jia: Recent Paintings, ShanghART, Shanghai (2020); Refocusing on the Medium, The Rise of East Asia Video Art, OCAT, Shanghai (2020); Zhu Jia: Be Together for Today, DRC No. 12, Beijing (2017); Art and Chine After 1989: Theater of the World, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, U.S.A. (2017); The 3rd Nanjing International Art Festival, Baijia Lake Art Museum, Nanjing (2016); 3rd Bienal de Montevideo, Montevideo, Uruguay (2016); That has Been, and May be Again , Para Site, Hong Kong (2016); Displaying Fragments, Ten Years of OCAT (2005-2015), OCAT, Beijing (2016); Art Changsha 2015, Changsha Municipal Museum and Tan Guobin Contemporary Art Museum, Changsha (2015); Zhu Jia: Critical Pervasion, ShanghART, Shanghai (2015); Mobile M+: Moving Images, Hong Kong (2015); LANDSEASKY: Revisiting Spatiality in Video Art, OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shanghai (2014); Zhu Jia: Zero, ShanghART, Beijing (2012); Out of the Box, The Threshold of Video Art in China (1984-1998), Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou (2011); 7th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai Art Musuem, Shanghai (2008); Zhu Jia: We Are Perfect, ShanghART H-Space, Shanghai (2008); 10th International Istanbul Biennial, Turkey (2007); Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography and Video from the Haudenschild Collection, National Art Museum of China, Beijing (2005); 50th International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale, Italy (2003); Tempo, the Works Show of Contemporary Art in 20th, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, U.S.A. (2002); Living in Time - 29 Contemporary Artists from China, National Galerie im Hamburger Bahnhof Museum fuer Gegenwartskunst, Berlin, Germany (2001); 11th Biennale of Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art etc., Sydney, Australia (1998); 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, South Africa (1997).