China
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).
Miao Xiaochun, Congressman, 2002, 120 cm x 315 cm, chromogenic print
