Miao Xiaochun. Microcosmos

Continuing in the international vein of Es Baluard’s Aljub hall, the museum presents an individual proposal by Miao Xiaochun (Wuxi, Jiangsu, China, 1964) in collaboration with Casa Asia. Seen as one of the most relevant artists of the moment on China’s media art scene, Miao Xiaochun centres his work on subjective reinterpretations of the great masters of the history of western art, using the latest technologies, digital media, and the most advanced software for infographic animation to recreate virtual realities. He was a pupil at CAFA, Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and later at the Kunsthochschule in Kassel; his work has been exhibited in Le Grand Palais, Paris (2008) and the Saatchi Gallery, London (2008). At the last Venice Biennale he was one of the artists who represented China in his country’s pavilion. In Spain his work has been seen in Matadero Madrid (2009-2010) and Tabacalera, Madrid (2011-2012).

In Microcosmos (2008) Miao Xiaochun uses 3D technique to reinterpret the triptych by Hieronymus Bosch (El Bosco) (c.1450-1516), The Garden of Earthly Delights, re-reading the ancient fable to turn it into a contemporary story, with modern language, thus creating a series of mysteries which metaphorically respond to his vision of the world, of existence and of death, that is perfectly apprehensible by today’s culture just as El Bosco’s work would have been for his contemporaries, even though it is now made more complex by the numerous characters and details that confront us with the passage of the centuries.

Microcosmos,the work presented by this artist in the Aljub space, reproduces a spectacular audiovisual scenario and fuses image and sound, taking spectators on an unsettling sensorial journey which recovers the tradition of movement inherent in Baroque painting. In his quest for the fusion of image and sound, the artist resorts to Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture, relationally, placing cultures and periods of art history in contact, establishing connections between traditions and places.

Generally speaking Miao Xiaochun uses the androgynous figure to represent the human being. The visual spectacle of this video recovers the symbolism of The Garden of Earthly Delights, which he reinterprets in the 21st century, updating what is a representative work of the history of western painting. The artist “resorts to Bosco’s iconography, making however an interpretation of this image of the Renaissance from his own oriental perspective, in general terms and from the stance of Chinese culture in particular, but in a globalized world where contact between cultures precipitates hybridization, contaminating the supposed individuality of the secular traditions that have formed them”.¹

¹ Menene Gras Balaguer, see catalogue Beijing Time for the exhibition with the same title (Curators: Fang Zhenning and Menene Gras Balaguer, texts: Jesús Sanz Escorihuela, Menene Gras Balaguer, Fang Zhenning, Pub. Casa Asia, 2009).