2019: The Art of Democracy
Presentation Title
Keywords
art, critical reflection, symbolism
Description
Aileen Wang curated an exhibition entitled “Culture Mixmaster Zhang Hongtu”, the first one-person exhibition in the Midwest of artist Zhang Hongtu. Zhang grew up in China as part of the Muslim minority and, because of his family’s religious and political backgrounds, suffered persecution during the authoritarian regime of Chinese Communist Party founder Mao Zedong. After surviving the Cultural Revolution in China, he moved to New York City in 1982 to study art and start a new life. Throughout his career, Zhang created works that pushed viewers to take a critical look at the repercussions of political repression, nationalist sentiment, and propaganda on both sides of the Pacific.
The insights that Zhang shares through his work are delivered with self-awareness, playfulness, and humor, even when they are slyly critical of the status quo. Quaker Oats Mao, executed just a few years after Zhang arrived in New York, draws parallels between Chinese political propaganda and American product advertising. Ping-Pong Mao is a table tennis table with cut-outs in the shape of Chairman Mao’s head. The game requires players to avoid the holes. If the ball falls through one, the opponent wins a point. Zhang also created a site-specific work entitled Great Wall with Gates III, which offers a different vision for the Great Wall of China, built by China’s first emperor in the third century BCE to keep out non-Chinese in the north. Zhang digitally renders the structure to resemble an aqueduct, with openings for the free flow of people. Wang argues, through the works of Zhang Hongtu, that art is a powerful weapon against tunnel vision. By its ability to tell the stories of people with different experiences and from different cultures, engagement with it increases our capacity for tolerance and empathy.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Fighting Tunnel Vision with Art
Aileen Wang curated an exhibition entitled “Culture Mixmaster Zhang Hongtu”, the first one-person exhibition in the Midwest of artist Zhang Hongtu. Zhang grew up in China as part of the Muslim minority and, because of his family’s religious and political backgrounds, suffered persecution during the authoritarian regime of Chinese Communist Party founder Mao Zedong. After surviving the Cultural Revolution in China, he moved to New York City in 1982 to study art and start a new life. Throughout his career, Zhang created works that pushed viewers to take a critical look at the repercussions of political repression, nationalist sentiment, and propaganda on both sides of the Pacific.
The insights that Zhang shares through his work are delivered with self-awareness, playfulness, and humor, even when they are slyly critical of the status quo. Quaker Oats Mao, executed just a few years after Zhang arrived in New York, draws parallels between Chinese political propaganda and American product advertising. Ping-Pong Mao is a table tennis table with cut-outs in the shape of Chairman Mao’s head. The game requires players to avoid the holes. If the ball falls through one, the opponent wins a point. Zhang also created a site-specific work entitled Great Wall with Gates III, which offers a different vision for the Great Wall of China, built by China’s first emperor in the third century BCE to keep out non-Chinese in the north. Zhang digitally renders the structure to resemble an aqueduct, with openings for the free flow of people. Wang argues, through the works of Zhang Hongtu, that art is a powerful weapon against tunnel vision. By its ability to tell the stories of people with different experiences and from different cultures, engagement with it increases our capacity for tolerance and empathy.
