Part II: The Cultural Revolution Pictures

In 1958, Mao Zedong led the campaign of the “Great Leap Forward,” based on the Theory of Productive Forces, aimed to use China’s population to rapidly transform China from an agrarian economy into a modern communist society. Iron and steel production was identified as a key requirement for economic advancement, so millions of peasants were ordered away from agricultural work to join the iron and steel production workforce. Private farming was prohibited and those engaged in it were labeled as enemies of the state. The movement ended in catastrophe, triggering a widespread famine that resulted in up to thirty million deaths in three years.

Mao had always desired to create a “classless” China, in which no one was better than anyone else, everyone working for the good of China. In 1966, he insisted on removing “liberal bourgeois” elements from the society through post-revolutionary class struggle, mobilizing the thoughts and actions of China’s youth, who formed Red Guard groups around the country. The widespread social and political upheaval resulted in nation-wide chaos and economic disarray, which spread through urban workers, the military, and the party leadership itself. People who had gone abroad were rigorously oppressed, labeled as enemies. At that time, people were still under the impression of being saved from war by Chairman Mao; they worshipped him and believed everything he said.

Fashion was denied – “beauty” resulted when everyone wore the same clothes, with no difference between genders. People rejected everything that was unique or Western, and anything from abroad. They even eradicated the “Four Olds,” which included old books, art, and museums. The Red Guards even attacked scholars. No one was safe from criticism: doctors, famous actors, writers, economists, teachers. Many people committed suicide because of the humiliation of being labeled an enemy.

The movement lasted for ten years, becoming a pivotal point in history for the development of Chinese culture. The Quotations of Chairman Mao played an important role during this time, considered the best gift for weddings, and everyone had to recite one quotation each time before they spoke.

Reading about the Cultural Revolution made me wonder: how would someone from that time period in China react if they traveled through time and arrived today, in contemporary America? How would they respond to the mass production of nearly all commodities? How would they respond a society of free individualism and identity? Unlike my parents’ generation, most of the people in my generation have not been through war, oppression, or hunger; they do not know how to economize or how to appreciate the life they can lead today.

As I dig into the Chinese youth identity during this project, I realized that everything always has two sides, but more importantly, that those two sides are not necessarily fixed. They can be flipped—good can be made of the bad.

Yexue Li

March 2010

Note: Part II: the Cultural Revolution Pictures is the second part of the project: The Occident and the Orient

Reflection to the Radicant Part III

"All graet artists copied, interpreted, and recycled masters of the past."

Who are you copying?
What makes you different from your idol?

Week 9 Progress Report

I developed all the films and scanned them over the week, and I'm in the process of editing them.

I'm also writing my artist statement, I will try to order the copy of my second book early next week.

comics = trash?

I've already loved comic books, even though I did not grow up in the Disney dream. But comic books were the first "art form" I knew. They offered me opportunities of imagination when there was no art environment for me.

The first comics I ever read was Do Ra A Mon, and I was 5: 

and of course it did not contain any sex, drugs or R&R elements.

The second one was Sailor Moon:

and it started to have violence involved.

I moved to Detective Conan which has a lot of death:

and right now I'm following Bleach and One Piece:

But none of these comic books I've read are similar to American comic books. I guess it is the eastern/western difference. Western comics are short and involved with ideas of self-expression (pornography in a way), and jokes I sometimes can't get. Especially for those underground graphics, they reflect the hidden history of culture, they contain political messages, and they always confused me. But I still appreciate them, as art.

I'm not sure about other people, but if they consider comics "trash", does that mean one day, art will become trash too?

p.s. I just realized that all the Asian comics I've read are Japanese. wow.

Mentor Report: Nikki S. Lee

One of the most amazing part about Nikki S. Lee that I forgot to mention in my presentation is that she does not only adopt dress codes and behaviors of those social groups, she even observes them and then decides if she should gain or lost weight for her next project.

Nikki S. Lee's works are usually compared to:
William Gedney

Cindy Sherman

Adrian Piper

Tseng Kwong Chi

Nikki S. Lee's Works

Projects

Parts

A.K.A. Nikki S. Lee

Bibliography
- Nikki S. Lee, Projects,2001
- Russell Ferguson, Let’s be Nikki
- Vicario Gibert, Conversation with Nikki S. Lee
- Susan Chevlowe, The Jewish identity Project,2006
- Nikki S. Lee, Parts,2005
- RoseLee Goldberg, Only Part of the Story, 2005
- William L. Hamilton, Shopping with Nikki S. Lee, New York Times, Dec 2, 2001
- Holland Cotter, Nikki S. Lee, New York Times, Sep 10, 1999
- Projects at the Museum of Contemporary Photography
- Ben Davis: Cultural Karaoke, Artnet Magazine
- Assumed identities: Nikki S Lee Photographs, The Cleverland Museum of Art Exhibition Feature

Reflection to the Radicant Part II

Table of Contents

by Greenberg

"... At this same party [a] friend introduced the then comparatively young art critic Clement Greenberg... Marianne seemed to be familiar with his writing and said, on shaking hands, "Oh, the fearless Mr. Greenberg."

-- Elizabeth Bishop 

in Efforts of Affection: A Memoir of Marianne Moore

This is Greenberg's breakthrough essay from 1939, written for the Partisan Review when he was twenty-nine years of age and at the time more involved with literature than with painting. He came, later, to reject much of the essay -- notably the definition of kitsch which he later believed to be ill thought out (as, indeed, it is.) Later he came to identify the threat to high art as coming from middlebrow taste, which in any event aligns much more closely with the academic than kitsch ever did or could. The essay has an air and assurance of '30s Marxism, with peculiar assumptions such as that only under socialism could the taste of the masses be raised. But for all that, the essay stakes out new territory. Although the avant-garde was an accepted fact in the '30s. Greenberg was the first to define its social and historical context and cultural import. The essay also carried within it the seeds of his notion of modernism. Despite its faults and sometimes heady prose, it stands as one of the important theoretical documents of 20th century culture.

-- Terry Fenton

Week 8 progress report

I'm in the process of editing all the photos' color for my first book, and scanning the negatives I selected from part 2.

I also went to take another 18 photos this weekend, don't know how they will come out yet...

Hopefully I can order a sample copy for Part 2 next week.