Qu Guangci

Qu Guangci was born in Shanghai in 1969. He trained at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, earning a B.A. from the Sculpture Department in 1994 and an M.A. from the same department in 1997. CAFA's own biography and other profiles state that he was, at age 25, the youngest artist to win the grand prize at a National Exhibition of Fine Arts, and that he received a Gold Medal for a work titled Wangfujing at the National Art Museum of China; the exact edition and year of that exhibition are not confirmed in current sources.

Qu went on to teach at Shanghai Normal University, where his wife, sculptor Xiang Jing, was also on the faculty. In 2007 the couple resigned their teaching posts and founded X+Q Sculpture Studio in Beijing to work full time. In 2010 they launched X+Q Art (Xiqi), a design brand that sold sculpture-derived objects through partners including department stores and online flagship stores, alongside gallery and museum exhibitions of his fine-art sculpture. He became known for a recurring cast of rounded, cherubic figures and for the "Little Fatty" series cited in China Daily's 2016 profile of the couple.

Qu Guangci is living and based in Beijing as of this writing. Institutional and press profiles, including CAFA's own biography and China Daily's coverage of X+Q Art, consistently describe him in the present tense, and no obituary, death notice, or credible report of his death has been identified in major art press or institutional channels.

Institutional framing of Qu Guangci centers on his productivity and his recognizable figurative style. CAFA's own biography describes him as "one of the most prolific sculpture artists in the Chinese contemporary art scene," pointing to his large body of rounded, satirical figures. Design press has also profiled Qu and Xiang Jing jointly as a working and creative partnership, extending his visibility beyond the fine-art exhibition circuit. His exhibition history, including a 2014 solo show, Northernmost Country, at Today Art Museum in Beijing, and a 2012 joint exhibition with Xiang Jing at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, situates him within a cohort of Chinese sculptors whose figurative, pop-inflected work bridges fine-art institutions and broader popular audiences. No exact, verbatim assessment from a named critic at a major art-press outlet was located for this profile.

Qu Guangci's public auction record is thin and difficult to verify. A 2006 Sotheby's New York sale, Contemporary Art Asia: China Japan Korea, listed a work titled Last Supper, Melancholy with a pre-sale estimate of USD 15,000 to 20,000, but no realized price for that lot is publicly documented. Beijing Council International Auction has listed Qu Guangci among younger artists for whom it has established auction records, without publishing specific results. No source consulted for this profile identifies a confirmed all-time auction high, work, price, or sale date for the artist.

Much of his commercial activity ran instead through X+Q Art (Xiqi), a design-retail brand built around his and Xiang Jing's sculptural motifs, distributed through department-store partners and online flagship stores in China and Hong Kong. That structure means a meaningful share of his output moved through commercial and design channels that do not report public hammer prices, rather than through the evening and day sales that typically establish an artist's benchmark market data.

Qu Guangci's market lacks the basic infrastructure collectors typically rely on: there is no published catalogue raisonne, no confirmed all-time auction record, and no clearly identified gallery currently representing his estate, beyond his own X+Q Sculpture Studio brand. His documented museum connection is narrower than his exhibition history suggests. Only OCAT (Office of Contemporary Art) is explicitly confirmed to hold his work in a permanent collection; his shows at Today Art Museum, MoCA Shanghai, and the Hong Kong Arts Centre are documented as exhibitions, not confirmed acquisitions. Any collector interest should be paired with direct verification through primary sources and, where possible, the artist's studio, rather than treated as settled.