Miao

According to this theory, the Miaos were the oldest residents on the land of China, who were later forced to move to the South when expelled by the forces of Huangdi and Yandi.

It is generally accepted in academic circles that the earliest historical documentation about the origin of the contemporary Miao--other than the legendary story about San Miao during the antiquity of the Yao Yu period--can be traced back to The Book on Barbarians (Manshu) written by Fan Chuo during the Tang dynasty (618-907).

(4) Within this context, the label "Miao" gradually expanded its referential range and became a blanket term for non-Han ethnic groups.

Unlike his last show at Walsh Gallery, "H2O: A Study of Western Art History" (2007), which attempted to reflect the art of Europe's past in a drop of water, a basic element found almost anywhere, Beijing artist Miao Xiaochun's "Microcosm" (through September 1) is dedicated to a single masterpiece, Hieronymus Bosch's fifteenth-century triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, among whose innumerable pastiches is now to be counted a version in Eastern techno drag.

At first glance, Miao's homage seems little different from its Netherlandish original.

In Miao's "Microcosm," we see a battened-down version of recent Western grotteschi, but expressed here via the Chinese concept of linmo--not simply the literary act of imitation, but of critical development and reinterpretation.