In Search of Chairman Mao: 12 Days in Beijing

Every day during my stay in Beijing in June 2019 I searched for Chairman Mao. In different places across the city I found portraits, photographs, paintings, sculptures and quotes. I had myself, the tourist, photographed in front of each. These photographs have been pasted over the lead story and photograph from that day’s China Daily, an English language newspaper owned by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China. Under each photograph a quote from Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book replaces what would have been the caption. The other photographs from the front and back pages of the newspaper have had different coloured Post-it notes stuck over them, a material trace of the Lennon Walls from Hong Kong where daily protests were taking place during this period but of which there was no coverage in the China Daily. The work is presented in twelve panels, each representing one day spent in Beijing. The display of the newspapers evokes the newspaper walls of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Each panel: 0.71 x 0.56m. Installed 6 x 2 panels: 4.31m x 1.13m. Digital prints, newspaper, Post-it notes and PVA on canvas, 2019-20. Day 1, Thursday, June 20, 2019. Badge of Locomotive named after Chairman Mao, 1977. China Railway Museum, Beijing. Day 2, Friday, June 21, 2019. Bust of Lei Feng with “Learn from Comrade Lei Feng – Mao Zedong” written on the plinth. Qianmen West Street, Beijing. Day 3, Saturday, June 22, 2019. Portrait of Chairman Mao. Entrance to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Day 4, Sunday, June 23, 2019. ‘Mao Zedong and Huang Yanpei’, by Wu Weishan, 2015. National Museum of China, Beijing. Day 5, Monday, June 24, 2019. ‘The Golden Sun’, by Peng Bin, 1962. The Military Museum of The Chinese People’s Revolution, Beijing. Day 6, Tuesday, June 25, 2019. The Great Wall of China, Mutianyu. The slogan “Loyal to Chairman Mao” can be seen on the mountain in the distance. Day 7, Wednesday, June 26, 2019. Headless Chairman Mao, 798 Art District, Beijing. Day 8, Thursday, June 27, 2019. Poster of Chairman Mao in the window of Yan Hui Zeng’s shop for Chinese Cultural Items 1949-1979, Beijing Antique City, Beijing. Day 9, Friday, June 28, 2019. Purchasing Chairman Mao’s ‘Little Red Book’. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, English Edition, Peking, 1966. Panjiayuan Market. Beijing. Day 10, Saturday, June 29, 2019. Chairman Mao Memorial Hall and sculpture "Carry the cause of our revolution through to the end". Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Day 11, Sunday, June 30, 2019. Chairman Mao. PLA Commanders and Democracy Activists taking pictures in front of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, 1949. Temple of Heaven, Beijing. Day 12, Monday July 1, 2019. “Construction workers take a break outside the Museum of Chinese History in Tiananmen Square. They are in the process of taking down the huge portrait of Mao seen in the scaffolding behind them. The removal of the ubiquitous portraits was aimed at ending the personality cult of Mao, Beijing, 1981.” Photograph by Liu Heung Shing, Star Gallery, 798 Art District, Beijing