This folder contains photographs, manuscripts, and documents of thirty-nine performance art pieces Ma Qizhi realised between 1994 and 2016, documents of Ma’s text-based works in the late-1990s, photographs of Ma’s mixed media paintings in the early 1990s, and selected ink paintings by Ma in 2014. Also in the folder are Ma’s plan for a public sculpture project in 1999, two documentary films on Ma’s work and life produced by the Gansu Television in 2006 and 2010, and documents of exhibitions including Today Art Show: The Second Edition (Lanzhou, 1993) and The First Hanmo New Art Exhibition (Beijing, 1994), among others. The collection also contains a small batch of selected correspondences and personal files.  

Ma Qizhi, artist and art event organiser, was born in 1967 in Tianshui area of Gansu Province to a family of Hui ethnicity. From 1986 to 1990, Ma studied at Minzu University of China in Beijing, majoring in ethnic studies and ethnic policy-making. In 1989, he began to study ink painting at the university. Upon graduation, Ma returned to Lanzhou, and has taught at Northwest Minzu University since. In the early 1990s, inspired by Antoni Tàpies’s autobiography, Ma started creating mixed-media paintings, and organised his first exhibition in 1992. In 1994, Ma staged his first performance art piece, To Pay Adequate Attention to a 9 Square-meter Surface, on the school campus. The video documentation of the work was later exhibited at the First Hanmo New Art Exhibition in Beijing. Since then, Ma has staged a series of performance art pieces in public space in Lanzhou. In 2015, he participated in the inaugural exhibition of Yinchuan Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2010, he founded the Gaodunying Art Festival. Ma is currently an Associate Professor at the School of Marxist Theories at Northwest Minzu University.