Transcultural contemporaneity in the paintings of Juan Baños in China.

Abstract:

The purpose of this article is to explore in the context of Shanghai in regards to the distances and closeness between Chinese and Spanish cultures are revealed, defined and questioned, through the pictorial canvases of Juan Antonio Baños (Spain, 1980). His nomadism or status as a foreigner will raise some doubts about the identity and the place that the artist occupies in the contemporary world. In addition, the contemporaneity of his work suggests some effects according to which the borders disappear, while new ones are erected. The mere gesture of Baños´ artwork in attempting to translate the traces of Shanghai by means of a world of dislocations and citations incites a heterogeneous symphony of varied spaces and times that amplify the possibilities of artistic knowledge between East and West. Drawing from the analysis of a postcolonial framework that stretches from baroque hyperrealism to retro-futurist epistemologies of the city, right up to a kitsch pop art, the article claims that this translatable cultural itinerary displaces the ways of understanding contemporary art in China towards a post-paradigmatic period.

Keywords:
(Un)Translatable; Traces; Transculturality; Neo-Baroque; Contemporaneity