Miao Xiaochun: A Glimpse Through Time
Curators: Yang Xiaoyan, Steven Dragonn
Date: March 8 – May 3, 2025
Venue: Canton-sardine, Vancouver
We are honored to invite Miao Xiaochun, a transmedia artist based in Berlin and Beijing, and a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, to present his first solo exhibition in Canada, A Glimpse Through Time, at Canton-sardine. The exhibition is co-curated by Professor Xiaoyan Yang and Steven Dragonn and is part of the selected program of the 2025 Capture Photography Festival in Vancouver.
The exhibition features A Visit from the Past to the Present, a series of photographs created by artist Miao Xiaochun between 1999 and 2004. The artist places a sculpture he made of an ancient Chinese figure into various modern urban settings around the world to create a series of cinematic-like still images. The “dramatic” composition and tonal design of these images give them a unique poetic quality.
The act of “poeticizing” reality and transforming its appearance is a technique favored by German Romantic artists such as Novalis. Later, surrealist artists like Max Ernst also focused on the poetic and estranging aspects of reality, using it to break free from the constraints of logical thinking, which shares similarities with Chinese Zen Buddhism. Miao Xiaochun’s photographs with this ancient Chinese figure also contain surreal elements. He uses a “poetic” perspective and grand dramatic expression to guide us in discovering the multiple meanings of his work.
As Miao Xiaochun has achieved great success in the international art world, the curators hope to reintroduce this series of works from over 20 years ago to the public, encouraging viewers to reconsider the changes in “time—space—ethnicity—globalization” over the past two decades. Can the artist’s reflections transcend the dimensions of time and space, offering insights to audiences of different eras?
Miao Xiaochun, As a guest of a German family, 1999, Photograph, 120x251cm
In addition to the exhibition, Miao Xiaochun’s animation work Gyro Dance (2017) will be screening from March 1 to March 31 on the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen, an outdoor urban screen located at the intersection of Broadway and Kingsway in Vancouver. As a satellite project of his Vancouver solo exhibition, this work is co-presented by Canton-sardine and Grunt Gallery. (Please see www.mpcas.ca/screening-schedule for screening times)
The dancers in the 3D animation work Gyro Dance are made by a three-dimensional scan and are turned into recognizable while slightly sudden and salient digital figures through the function of deformation of software. They are instructed to complete a series of movements according to the open material on the Internet (motion capture). These movements are common in everyday life, but after successive processing using the function of superposition of software, look weird and unbelievable like alien creatures. It is like looking at human values and rules of conduct with the eyes of another species . From Paleolithic to artificial intelligence, we have kept, are keeping and will continue to keep this kind of incredibility and absurdity.
About the artist
Miao Xiaochun (b.1964) graduated from Nanjing University, China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) and the Kunsthochschule Kassel, Germany. Professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, he lives and works in Beijing. He started in 90s his creative explorations on the interface between the real and the virtual. His extensive body of work includes photography, painting and 3D computer animation based on softwares. His work has been worldwide exhibited, including the 55th Venice Biennale(Chinese Pavilion, Venice, 2013), the 7th Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art(Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2012), the 1st Kiev International Biennial of Contemporary Art(Kiev, 2012), the 4th Guangzhou Triennial(Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, 2012), Busan Biennale(Busan MoMA, 2008), the Seoul Media Art Biennale(Seoul, 2006), Shanghai Biennale(Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, 2002) and Between Past and Future ( ICP and Asia Society, NY; Smart Museum of Art and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; V & A, London; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2004-2006).
His work is in the collections of The MoMA New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Smart Museum of Art, Chicago; Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; Fondation Nationale d’Art Contemporain (FNAC), Paris; Singapore Art Museum; Shanghai Art Museum; M+ Museum HK, Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul; Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, MI.; Sigg Collection, Lucerne; Goetz Collection, Munich; Zabludowicz Collection, London; DSL Collection, Paris.
CANTON-SARDINE 