Biography

The works of Chinese photographer Miao Xiaochun (b. 1964) deal with the temporal, visual and conceptual dimension of photography. He resists those universal features of medium that generally involve the search for and the capturing of moments, and the tension between observer and observed.

In his photographic works is a figure looking like a sage, or an official from Ancient China, who processes the artist's facial features. Miao sees it as a symbol of classical Chinese culture, which he describes as a brilliant and powerful period lasting from the Han (206 BC–9 AD) to the Song Dynasty (960–1276). Various features of the figure's clothing and hairstyle stem from this long stretch of time. In Miao Xiaochun's works from his student life in Kassel Art College, he sits, stands or lies in recognizably Central European surroundings such as an airport, a factory, a phone booth, in the Wilhelmshöhe park above Kassel, or "as a guest of German friends" (1999).

The silent, motionless witness from a bygone age assumes his matter-of-fact place in surroundings the artist defines, his external appearance underlining his differentness. Miao Xiaochun's alter ego thus doubles vision, becoming an ally or a "second eye" to the artist and observer from China, who is behind the camera and thus distanced from what is being photographed. With the artistic device of the sage, Miao gives visual expression to the outer/inner dichotomy that all travellers or dwellers abroad inevitably see themselves facing. What attracts the eye is not so much the disturbingly lifeless figure of art, as the fact that it is staged within a curiously remote world, the one we must live in.

C.V.

Present		Works as a teacher at the Department of Photography and Digital Media at Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China
1995–99		Studied at the Kunsthochschule Kassel, Germany
1989–95		Lived as Artist in Beijing
1986–89		Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing
1982–86		Studied at Nangjing University
SOLO EXHIBITIONS (SELECTED)
2006		The Last Judgment in Cyberspace, Walsh Gallery, Chicago
2004		A Visitor from the Past, Epson Photogallery Shanghai–Beijing Phantasmagoria, Walsh Gallery, Chicago
2002		Linger, Gallery Urs Meile, Lucerne, Switzerland
2001		From East to West and back to East, Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing
1999		Kulturbegegnungen, Gallery Stellwerk, Kassel, Germany
1994		Beijing Art Museum and Shanghai Art Museum
1992		National Museum of Chinese History, Beijing
1991		Beijing Art Museum
1988		Gallery of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China

GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTED)
2004		Beyond Boundaries, The Shanghai Gallery of Art Pingyao à Paris, MK2, Paris Spellbound Aura — The New Vision of Chinese Photography, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taibei, Taiwan Rivka Rinn and Miaoxiaochun, White Space Beijing at 798 Le Printemps de Chine, Musée CRAC Alsace, France Sightseeing, SCA Gallery, Sydney College of the Arts, Australia Un–normal Perspective, 798 space Between Past and Future — New Photography and Video from China International Center of Photography and Asia Society, New York Smart Museum of Art and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, USA
2003		Me and more, Artmuseum Lucerne, Switzerland ARCO, Art Fair Spain Art Fair Zurich, Switzerland Left Hand and Right Hand, A Sino–German Exhibition of Contemporary Art, 798 Art Space, Beijing Concept in situ, The Villa Museum, Beijing Modernization & Urbanization — Asian Art now, Marronnier Art Center, Seoul, Korea Art Fair, Cologne, Germany Encounter, Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing
2002		Urban creation, Shanghai Biennale 2002, Shanghai Art Museum Media City Seoul 2002, The 2nd Seoul international media art Biennale, Seoul, Korea China–Tradition and Modern, Ludwig Museum, Oberhausen, Germany Chinese Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia Art Fair cologne, Germany Art Fair, Cologne, Germany Fantasia, East Modern Art Center, Beijing, China Under construction, Tokyo Opera city Art Gallery