Miao Xiaochun:  A Visitor from the Past

By Gu Zheng

"He", an ancient Chinese scholar in an official's high-topped hat and gown, with a never-changing solemn expression, appears like a ghost in public or private places in Western countries. He either stands among throngs of people in an airport lounge, or stands beside a car assembly line in a deserted workshop, or is present in the midst of the Chinese students protesting in Bonn against the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, or sits properly at a dinner table of a German family in neat and formal clothes.

This statue of an ancient man of letters, in fact, has been modelled by Miao Xiaochun out of his own image. Miao Xiaochun calls this double of himself as "He" and has tailored "his" costume by himself. He also puts this second self of him in different public places in order to incorporate "him" into the scenes of his photographs. In this way Miao Xiaochun completed his graduation works at the Kassel Academy of Fine Arts (der Kunsthochschule Kassel) in Germany. At that time he focused his works on the contrast between oriental and occidental cultures through Chinese elements. By mostly visually spatiotemporal docking and juxtaposition Miao Xiaochun highlights the contrasts between east and west cultures, thus bringing up topics on contemporary culture, identification, dialogue between tradition and modernity, etc...

With the spatiotemporal differences caused by the changes in his personal life, Miao Xiaochun's self-portrait as an ancient Chinese scholar, like a embryo, begins its propagation and reproduction. Since his return to the Central Academy of Fine Arts as a teacher in 1999, his works have finally broken the simple framework of binary east-west cultural differences and has entered a new, broader world. The theme throughout his works has gradually deepened, his modes of expression have fully developed, and their connotations have become richer and more and more complex. Once on his own land, "he" quietly watches all the changes taking place here; but "he" only watches, solemn and silent.

"He" is placed under a particle accelerator for a therapy; "he" stands still in the streets filled with advertisements that arouse people's desires; "he" is at a complete loss what to do in the city's misted nights; "he", together with others, watches monkeys at play in a zoo; "he" is in still meditation by the riverside with a girl nearby checking messages on her mobile phone; "he" (more than one "he") even lingers in a classical Chinese garden looking up into the sky as if there were an air raid imminent. Social changes and unsaid worries in the present-day China are depicted by Miao Xiaochun in an intriguing way. From Germany to China, "he" is weaved into various strata of eastern and western life to face different circumstances and to be involved in dialogues of different types.

"He", in the face of such varied and complicated reality, remains so calm and composed that it gives the impression that even what we normally do in normal circumstances are contrasted as senseless behaviours. The fact that "he" stays unperturbed in front of temptations and dangers itself is a silent condemnation of our tendencies of being impulsive and subject to the feeling of loss. As another self of Miao Xiaochun, "he" himself, in a given context, undergoes a scrutiny by "others" while examining them. Whether scrutinizing or being scrutinized, "he" symbolizes a mirror for a culture or a nation's self-examination, self-reflection and self-discovery.

Miao Xiaochun's works help us to realize that photography can without doubt contribute to the reconstruction of a new world; moreover, the reconstruction is no exclusive privilege of painting. The establishment of this world is certainly not a mechanical, unprincipled copying which was criticized before, but a conceptual world which has been rebuilt and reprocessed by the artist with adequate confidence, and which has been presented to people in the most quintessential form. He has made full use of digital technology and carried out the operations in reverse order by using realistic myths to construct a quintessential but purely virtual, conceptual world, which also brings his charisma into full play. The virtuality thus created has eventually constituted a tension between the reality and non-reality. In the meantime, the accuracy in reproducing the "now" is original sin no more for photography and those who advocate a fictional way can now be free of the sense of guilt for being hand in glove with photography. It is for this reason that Miao Xiaochun's photography exists in the form of a visual guide and intellectual access to our reconsideration about the principle of the world as well as the essence of photography.

For Miao Xiaochun, his art does not only mean photography itself, but also sculpture, concept, installation, etc. among other modern art forms. It is a mode of expression by which Miao attains a dramatic combination between himself as "another" and the modern social life. The appearance of the "another" provides an opportunity for either the eastern or western modern life itself to realize in a unique way the existence of the past. At the same time, it also allows the past to raise implicitly its questions to the modern life. Through photography, Miao Xiaochun calls back the past and presents it to the modern times and makes it possible for the true self to observe life in the guise of a distant, virtual self. By way of this virtual self he observes the present world and artificially establishes and presents a contradiction, confrontation or even conflict between "him" and "his" surroundings. These, of course, are not the fundamental purpose behind his painstakingly created magnum opus. His true motive is to make people think about the possibility of a harmonious coexistence of the cultural tradition and values embodied by this ancient Chinese man of letters and this disoriented world we are in. It is our natural question: In the face of such scenes, if we would reflect that once these become fact, what might our reaction be and what were we going to do to accept it?

--- Gu Zheng, Miao Xiaochun: A Visitor from the Past, epSITE Beijing-Shanghai, 2004