1962年出生于中国北京。他是中国最重要的自学成才的艺术家之一。顾德新是中国最早尝试探索材料不同性质的艺术家之一，这些材料既包括有机的，也包括无机的，既令人着迷，又令人厌恶。顾德新的视觉语言充满了想象力。他的作品自由地表达出其无法抑制的、充满玩味和无限生机的意愿，这些作品表面上似乎表现了一个天真无邪的世界，但实际上它们代表了现实生活中的哲学和实际主题。
尽管顾德新在70年代后期开始业余画画，但在1986年他便举办了他的第一个个展。自1980年代末，他开始使用不同的媒介材料表达自己的作品。废弃的塑料被溶解，融合成有机结构。多年来，他在选择材料上变得更加激进。他一般不会对作品理念深入阐释，而是通过作品本身传达。他的装置作品通常具有很大的体量，并且根据场景特制，第一眼就能吸引观众，与观众形成交流，进而深入到艺术家的想法中。他的作品选择不使用标题，他只是采用安装完成的时间，和其作品开始腐烂和转换过程作为一种称号，以强调作品的短暂性。
对于顾德新来说，艺术作为一种媒介，从来不是一种强加的想法，也不是任何一种行使权利的方式。另一方面，艺术从未在他生命中占有不可或缺的意义或位置；完美的平衡一直是被寻求和深入思考的。作为一个“艺术家”的生涯，或者说，他可能更愿意说成，作为“一个喜欢玩的人”，跨越三十多年，顾德新一直保持着坚定且谦卑的位置。
起初，他努力通过与年轻的伙伴一起展览、做行为和装置来表达自己的想法，直到70年代末期，愈发普遍。之后，他又以一种“低姿态”保持一种简单的生活方式，进而得到了更广泛的认可。他强烈的感觉到，要从控制他的思想到防止狂热的艺术世界，最重要的是，他的生命。
在2009年北京常青画廊的展览“被看到的是死气沉沉的”展览上，他毅然做出决定，退出艺术界，顾德新决定不再参加展览，一个空的空间代表了他的缺席。三十年过去了，顾德新在中国乃至全世界得到广泛的展现，为中国的当代艺术做出巨大的贡献。
Born in 1962 in Beijing, China. He is one of the most important self-taught artists in China. Gu Dexin was one of the first artists in China to experiment with exploring the varied nature of materials, both organic and inorganic, both fascinating and repulsive. Gu Dexin's visual language is full of imagination. His works freely express his irrepressible will to be playful and infinitely alive, and while they seem on the surface to represent an innocent world, they actually represent real-life philosophical and practical themes.
Although Gu Dexin began painting as an amateur in the late 1970s, he held his first solo exhibition in 1986. Since the late 1980s, he has been using different media materials to express his works. Discarded plastics are dissolved and fused into organic structures. Over the years he has become more radical in his choice of materials. He does not usually elaborate deeply on the concept of his work, but rather conveys it through the work itself. His installations are often very large and site-specific, attracting the viewer at first glance, creating a dialogue with the viewer that leads to a deeper understanding of the artist's ideas. He chooses not to use titles for his works; he simply employs the time of completion of the installation, and the beginning of the decay and transformation process of his works as a designation to emphasise the ephemeral nature of the works.
For Gu Dexin, art as a medium has never been an imposed idea or any kind of exercise of power. On the other hand, art has never had an indispensable meaning or place in his life; the perfect balance has always been sought and deeply contemplated. Throughout his career as an‘artist’, or as he might prefer to call it, as‘a person who likes to play’, over a period of more than thirty years, Gu Dexin has maintained a firm and humble position.
At first, he endeavoured to express himself through exhibitions, performances and installations with his young companions, until the late 1970s, when they became more common. Later, he maintained a simple lifestyle with a‘low profile’, which became more widely recognised. He feels strongly about going from controlling his thoughts to preventing the frenzy of the art world and, most importantly, his life.
At the 2009, in his “seen asdead” exhibition atGalleria ContinuaBeijing, he made a resolute decision to withdraw from the art world, and Gu Dexin decided not to participate in exhibitions any longer, an empty space representing his absence. Thirty years later, Gu Dexin has been widely shown in China and around the world, and has made great contributions to Chinese contemporary art.
