Sera Tonin @ Retro:viral Vintage: June 2011

Years ago, in the 90s, I was browsing at the Valley Markets in Brunswick Street, and came across a stall that was full of kitschy chinese items... lighters and watches and tins, all plastered with a familiar face. I got talking to the stall owner who as it turned out, made regular trips to China to buy up all his stock. The items he had for sale, were all propaganda items from the Cultural Revolution in China headed by Chairman Mao- Mao Zedong aka Mao Tse Tung. I didn't buy any of his stuff. But now I look back with a little regret. What happened to all that stuff? I look back at myself then. With no interest in Chinese history or even what happened yesterday- and wish I'd had the foresight to at least have grabbed an alarm clock...

I didn't even realise at the time, that the main reason I would have recognised this famous face was because of a portrait that Andy Warhol made of the Chinese leader in 1972 at a time when China was re-opening to the west. Warhol had a talent for recognising that fame was about image and that fame had the ability to transform images into icons- and icons lived on beyond the time where they were created. At the turning point of the Cold War, Warhol appropriated Chinese political iconography and used it to boost his own publicity machine.

Kynaston McShine from Gallery Warhol suggests, "If Warhol can be regarded as an artist of strategy, his choice of Mao as a subject - as the ultimate star - was brilliant. The image of Mao, taken from the portrait photograph reproduced in the chairman's so-called Little Red Book, is probably the one recognized by more of the world's population than any other - a ready-made icon representing absolute political and cultural power. In Warhol's hands this image could be considered ominously and universally threatening, or a parody, or both."

After listing many political and strategical achievements about Mao, Wikipedia says, "Mao remains a controversial figure to this day, with a contentious legacy that is subject to continuing revision and fierce debate. He is officially held in high regard in China as a great political strategist, military mastermind, and savior of the nation. Additionally, he is viewed as an intellectual, poet, philosopher, and visionary.
Conversely, nationwide political campaigns led by Mao, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, are blamed for millions of deaths, causing severe famine and damage to the culture, society and economy of China. Moreover, although China's population almost doubled during the period of Mao's leadership[3 (from around 550 to over 900 million),[4] his rule from 1949 to 1976 is believed to have caused the deaths of 40 to 70 million people.[5][6]

Despite the ongoing dispute, he is still regarded as one of the most important figures in modern world history,[7] and was named one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century by Time Magazine.[8]"

It's not surprising then that Andy Warhol saw Mao as a fitting subject. Gallery Warhol goes on to say, "Committed to mining popular culture for his iconography, Warhol moved seamlessly from his earlier portraits of celebrities to that of a political figure and authoritarian ruler. In doing so, he indirectly but incisively exposed the power of mass media in the creation, canonization and commodification of personas for the purpose of collective absorption. While his simplified, logo-like representation and repetition of glamorous stars reflect the consumerist ethos of American capitalism and the advertising and publicity machinations that underpinned it, Warhol's Mao reveals the centrally controlled propaganda apparatus of Chinese communism. Mao's physiognomy was propagated via billboards, posters and pamphlets throughout China as a means of stating his omnipresence as both a benevolent and fearsome leader, casting a watchful eye over his subjects. Having engineered the persecution of intellectuals and artists through the Cultural Revolution, and extinguished the potential Chinese equivalents of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, Mao essentially replaced such figures and turned himself into the communist counterpart of a Pop icon."

Is Paris Hilton taking tips from Mao? Infiltrating the lives and minds of peasant masses with cheap pop crap and as much exposure as possible?

What of all the little bits of pieces of propaganda that are floating around in the world with Mao face plastered on them? What does it mean to have made oneself a product or symbol? Along with copies of the famous "Little Red Book" which was distributed to every Chinese citizen with quotes and Maoist ideology 101, a multitude of objects were produced that were dedicated to the Maoist cause... ashtrays, alarm clocks, lighters that play music (the east is red), posters, badges, wall-paper for nurseries, ceramic statuettes of peasants riding rockets, and mangos? (I'm not going to go all history lesson on you... more on the mangos below) Jeez what a guy. You could put your smoke out on his face or wax mango as a salute to his greatness... But that is his greatness. In the everyday object, part of all of our lives, not just your average Chinese citizen. His fame, his image reaches far beyond any of his words could. But what does it mean now? In our current time, in the context of Chinese history and the country's current "Cultural Revolution"? What does it mean now in our fame obsessed capitalist culture and the machine of fame? What does the Mao lighter mean now that it no longer lights? What now that the wax mangos have melted and the alarm clocks no longer tick? Is there much of a difference between political leader and celebrity or brand?

Mao has become symbol for so many things- to east and west alike. And perhaps his greatest legacy was not a cultural revolution in China, or a great strategist who overcame threats to his dictatorship through propaganda, but more a living demonstration of the power of imagery in our daily lives.

Monday, 6 June 2011

Mao & The Cultural Revolution