Transcript Post-70s Artists and the Search for the Self in China

Changing Practices of Artistic
Production and Consumption
CCCH9017
People, Propaganda and Profit:
Understanding Media in China
Ling-Yun Tang, Dept. of Sociology, HKU
November 17, 2010
Objectives
• Does Mao still matter?
• Artistic production and consumption
• Concluding thoughts
Does Mao still matter?
Revolutionary fervor
• “Great Teacher,
Great Leader, Great
Commander, Great
Helmsman”
• Center of “predigital” mass media
• Paraphernalia
Mao badges:
“Red, shiny, bright”
• Began circulating in
1930s-40s
• = loyalty to Mao and
revolutionary cause
• 5 billion produced
1966-71
• See:
http://libraries.claremont
.edu/sc/exhibits/mao/m
aofever.htm
Revolutionary songs
• http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/Chin
a/CRSongs/crsongs.htm
• After temporary ‘cooling
off’ period in 1980s,
popular revival of Maoism
after 1989
• Re-emergence of
paraphernalia
• Positive feelings
associated with Mao
• Nostalgia or defamation?
“Mao fever” in
1990s
The East is Red, pop version
(1990)
• http://www.sino.uniheidelberg.de/conf/propaganda/musik.ht
ml
Egg on Mao
• Fear of defaming
Mao not limited to
China
• Linkages between
China and rest of
the world through
– Internet
– Business
Artistic interpretations of Mao
Zhang Hongtu, The Last Banquet, 1989
Zhang Hongtu,
Bilingual Chart of
Acupuncture Points
and Meridians (Front
and Back), 1990
Censorship that sells?
Huang Rui, Chairman Mao
10,000 Years, 2006;
the red curtain
Gao Qiang, 2006
Weakening state control?
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Technology
Administration
Property rights
Consumer rights
Yet persistence of repercussions…
Official media policy
• Citizens must defend “the security,
honor, and interests of the motherland”
• GAPP and SARFT (under CPD)
– no explicit mention of art
• Art, like media, is challenge to state
control
Art goes
mainstream
From cultural propaganda to
culture industries
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State agenda to spur economic growth
1949-79: art as tool of state
2000s: art as investment
Culture as means to an end
Art in the global market
• New opportunities abroad and at home
• Politics moves to background
• From “officialdom” to “semi-officialdom”
– Showing in malls, bars, factories, streets
– Galleries, auctions
• Using media to promote individual
careers
The global reach of art
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Artzinechina.com (Shanghai)
Artnet.com (Berlin)
Saatchionline.com (London)
Art Asia Pacific (New York)
Yishu (Vancouver)
Orientations (Hong Kong)
Contemporary Art and Investment (Beijing)
Consumer revolution
• Chinese bubble bursting January 2009
France24:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFigXCxdM
4o&feature=related
• Christie’s predicting upswing April 2010
Reuters:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1oT
KbtP0gA
Concluding thoughts
• Maoism still central to ruling ideology…
• Pop cultural and artistic trends chipping
away at message