Miao Xiaochun
Artist's Website
Artist Biography
Miao Xiaochun was born in 1964 in Wuxi, Jiangsu, China. He graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in 1989, Beijing, China and the Kunsthochschule Kassel in 1999, Germany. While studying in Europe he got familiarized with western art history, and the motifs from famous classic paintings were often animated in his videos. He is one of the pioneering Chinese artists who thoroughly explore the possibilities provided by computer software and 3-D technology. He teaches Art Photography and Digital Media in CAFA. He started making art in the 1990s with black-and-white digital photography. Then he switched it to color, and has continued to further develop this medium and its specific visual language. He works on contemporary photography based on the “multiple view point” perspective to the connections between history and the modern world. [1][2]
Formal Analysis
Miao Xiaochun explains his works of art as a ‘Digital Painting’ which combines traditional art with a new method. In his works, some of the most iconic and complex paintings from Western art history serve as the basis of his digital works. His creative process is not about analyzing or reinterpreting these works; it is more about, for example, using their structure for addressing contemporary issues.
As a matter of fact, as modifying and modernizing many of western artworks already having been considered classic in Western art history, he’s built many of his own works, mainly borrowing some old pieces that contained a large number of people and many stories. The characters, places and events on his works, for instance, are alike to those of Raphael’s ‘School of Athens’ and Hieronymus Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’. His works with a structure of a grand epic poem seem to connect the old days of China with the contemporary China, through which is to be seen the new space and time organically combined and connected with past, present and future.
His growing interest in digital technology resulted in The Last Judgment in Cyberspace (2006), a 3-D version of Michelangelo´s famous fresco in the Sistine Chapel consisting of C-prints and a seven-minute animated video work. More recently, he digitally created H2O Genesis (2007), Microcosm (2008), Restart (2008–2010), Disillusion (2009–2010), and Limitless and Out Of Nothing, finished in 2012. Each of these digitally animated works is accompanied by various 2-D artworks, such as C-prints, drawings, digital etchings, digital ink paintings, digital woodcuts, even embroideries on silk. This connection of new media artworks with traditional art and aesthetics is of interest to Miao Xiaochun: “Since Microcosm, I started to purposely ‘push’ new media back into traditional media. That’s why I tried ink (Chinese painting), drawing, and embroidery.[3]
Exhibitions
2009 Miao Xiaochun-Microcosm, Arario Gallery,Beijing, China
2009 Heaven and Earth: Miao Xiaochun’s Virtual World, Lin & Keng Gallery, Taipei, China
2008 Miao Xiaochun: Microcosmos, Alexander Ochs Galleries Berlin I Beijing, Berlin, Germany
2007 Miao Xiaochun: H2O, White Space Beijing, Beijing, China
2007 Miao Xiaochun: H2O, Alexander Ochs Galleries Berlin I Beijing, Berlin, Germany
2006 Image + Imagination, Osage contemporary art space, Hong Kong
2006 A Birdview, Zhu Qizhan Art Museum, Shanghai, China
2006 Miao Xiaochun: The Last Judgement In Cyberspace, White Space Beijing; Beijing, China
2006 Miao Xiaochun: The last judgement in cyberspace, Walsh Gallery, Chicago, USA
2006 Miao Xiaochun: The Last Judgement In CyberspaceE; Alexander Ochs Galleries Berlin I Beijing, Berlin, Germany
2004 Phantasmagoria, Walsh Gallery, Chicago, USA
2004 A visitor from the past, Epson Photogallery Shanghai-Beijing, China
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, China
1999 Kulturbegegnungen, Gallery Stellwerk, Kassel, Germany
1994 Beijing Art Museum; Shanghai Art Museum, China
1992 National Museum of Chinese History, Beijing, China
1991 Beijing Art Museum, Beijing, China
1988 Gallery of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China
Artwork
- The Neo-Cubism Limitless (2012)
- Disillusion (2009–2010)
- Restart (2008–2010)
- Microcosm (2008)
- H2O Genesis (2007)
- The Last Judgement in Cyberspace (2006)
- New Urban Reality (2003-2006)
- A Visitor from the Past (1999-2004)
References
Author
Ewon Moon