Ping+Pong+Mao+-+Zhang+Hongtu

image caption
 * Ping Pong Mao - Zhang Hongtu**
 * Title: //Ping Pong Mao// (unnumbered edition of 5)
 * Artist(s): Zhang Hongtu
 * Date: 1995
 * Period: Contemporary
 * Country of Origin: China/ United States
 * Cultural/Ethnic Affiliation: Chinese
 * Medium: Mixed Media
 * Dimensions: 60.00 x 99.99 x 30.00 Inches
 * Museum/Collection: unknown
 * Accession Number: unknown
 * Current Location and Manner of Display: 2/5 located at the Ethan Cohen Fine Arts in New York City
 * Provenance: unknown

This entry is for //Ping Pong Mao//, a mixed media piece by Chinese artist Zhang Hongtu. The artist lived in China during the Cultural Revolution, moving to New York City in 1982 to pursue fine arts. His work in the "Material Mao" series is related to the Political Pop art movement in China during the 1980s and 1990s though living outside of China he was not formally connected with its development in China. Zhang uses "readymades" and photo manipulation similar to Dada artists to create political satire and visual metaphor based on his relationship with the image of Mao.
 * Introduction**.

Zhang Hongtu's //Ping Pong Mao// is made from an actual ping pong table. It is 30 inches high, 60 inches in width, and 99 inches in length. The table has eight dark green metal legs, with the center four on wheels so that the table can be folded up and transported. The table top is made from particle board painted dark green with a white line around the top edge, and one dividing the table down the center lengthwise. The table is divided down the center width-wise by a green net that separates one players side from the other. On each side, there is a piece of the table cut out in the shape of Mao's silhouette. The cut-outs are also bordered by a white painted line mimicking the line that borders the edge of the table. On each side there is a wooden ping pong paddle with red rubber facing. Under one of the paddles is the white ping pong ball. This piece was exhibited with Zhang Hongtu's "Material Mao" series, also featuring the silhouette of Mao cut out of various materials, and other manipulations of Mao's image. The series fits with the concept of the Political Pop art movement in China.
 * Descriptive Analysis**.

//Ping Pong Mao// is part of a larger series of work by Zhang Hongtu created in the early 1990s called "Material Mao". It consists of a number of "cut out" works similar to this table, where Chairman Mao Zedong's sillohuette is cut out of various inexpensive materials such as wire mesh, stone, grass, popcorn, rice, and corn. In the series, there are also satirical photo collage images where the artist has added pingtails, Stalin's mustache, or changed the image to reflect other styles such as cubism.(MoMAO.com, n.d.). The most controversial image in the group is a parody of Da Vinci's //The Last Supper//, called //The Last Banquet// where each figure is replaced by Mao. It was to be displayed at a National exhibit in Washington, D.C. as part of a showcase of international art, but was taken out because it was misinterpreted to be a criticism of Christianity, when in fact, the artist was attempting to parody Maoism and the many banquets had by the elite of the communist party (Schneider and Wright, 2010).
 * Formal and Contextual Analysis**.

Zhang Hongtu's work in the "Material Mao" series was a deconstruction and exploration of the power and authority Mao's image had in the artist's life. On the artist's web site he writes the following about this series. "I believe in the power of the image, but I don't believe in the authority of the image. If you stare at a red shape for a long time, when you turn away, your retina will hold the image but you will see a green version of the same shape. In the same way, when I lived in China, I saw the positive image of Mao so many times that my mind now holds a negative image of Mao. In my art I am transferring this psychological feeling to a physical object." (MoMAO.com, n.d.). He goes on to state that some of his Chinese friends have commented that the negative space in his work is like the Taoist concept of being something between void and solid (Hay, 1996). On his web site he insists that the idea originally came from a bagel. (MoMAO.com, n.d.). He cautions that some people, particularly those that did not grow up in a communist state, do not understand the power of Mao's image, and would think his use of the image was similar to the work of Warhol's silkscreen reproductions of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe. He feels that it is not he same, as the image of Mao was revered and god-like. He felt guilty, like the act was sacrilegious, when he first cut out Mao's image. Instead, it was a way to psychologically remove the "authority of the image" and that he would continue to work on the Mao images until the image lost its hold on him (Hay, 1996).

installation view (image caption)

//Ping Pong Mao// is an example of a "readymade". This term coined by Marcel Duchamp and the Dada Movement refers to an ordinary everyday object that an artist selects and alters in some way that changes its original meaning. Politicial Pop artists were influenced by Dada, and adopted this art making technique. The Dada movement shared Political Pops purpose of satire and deconstruction, but without the commercialism, which was not part of Dada artist cultural experience during the early 1900s in Germany. In 2006, Zhang Hongtu was featured in a film called //Yellow Ox Mountain//, by Miao Wang. In the film the artist speaks more about the symbolism of the "cut outs" in his series. He says that Mao was untouchable, and in many of his cutouts this quality could be viewed as a neutral take on a highly controversial figure. //Ping Pong Mao// makes his untouchable nature even clearer, since the Mao shaped cutouts act as a hindrance to game play. Zhang Hongtu comments that this piece is a metaphor for living in Communist China with Mao in control. You don't want to be too far away from him or you might be labeled an enemy of communisim, but getting too close to the center, too close to Mao, could be equally dangerous (Wang, 2006).

Although the artist does not mention it, the choice of a ping pong table may not have been completely arbitrary. Ping Pong, also known as Table Tennis, is a very popular sport in China. Chairman Mao, and other party leaders were said to have played on a regular basis. China's internationally competitive team and the American team met in 1971 in Japan for the 31st World Table Tennis Championship. Based on relationships forged between players, the American team was invited to visit China. They were the first non-communist Americans to set foot in China since the Communist Part had come to power in 1949. After their visit, the Americans reciprocated and invited the Chinese team for a visit in 1972. President Nixon became the first U.S. President to visit China that year, opening up dialogue, ending a trade embargo against China, and beginning an era of better relations between the two countries. The press referred to what had happened as "Ping Pong Diplomacy". Not only had the sport helped ease relations, but the game was a metaphor for the way friendly gestures were volleyed back and forth between the U.S. and China (PBS, 1999).

Mao's image was such a powerful artistic icon during the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), that if statistics are correct there were three copies of his image created for each Chinese citizen at the time. According to Barme, it may be the single most reproduced portrait of all time (Barme, 1996; Dal Lago, 1999). It became more than a portrait of a man but a symbol of the ideals of a nation, whose leader was represented in a god-like manner. Often Mao's head was placed in the center of a red shining sun in the sky looking down upon the people of China. In the 1980s through 1990s the image had a resurgence in popularity through the Political Pop movement and the "Mao Craze" that was ignited by the 100th anniversary of Mao's birth. The renewed interest in Mao was part nostalgia and part criticism after perceived failures of the once revered system culminated by the June 4th, 1989 incident at Tienanmen Square.

The Political Pop art movement emerged in China in the late 1980s and combined ideas from Western Pop Art with socialist political icons.(Barme, 1996, p 216). Works like those in //The Great Criticism// series by Wang Guangyi highlight the convergence of Eastern idealism with Western materialism. This movement ArtSpeakChina.com defines the movement as "a contemporary Chinese art movement that derives its content from Western capitalist consumer culture and its style from Western Pop art of the 1960s. Political Pop simultaneously celebrates and critiques the similarities between the ideological power of advertising and the ideological power of Cultural Revolution propaganda. The artists involved have relied on pastiche, irreverence, irony, cynicism, parody, and playfulness to suggestively communicate the chaotic political and economic state of post-1989 Chinese society." (artspeakchina.com, 2011)

The meaning and purpose of these works are largely connected to the artist's background. Zhang Hontgu was born in 1943 in Pingliang, Gansu Provence. By 1950 his traditional Muslim family had moved to Beijing and by 1957 his father had been labeled a "rightist" by the Communist regime. He attended The Central Academy of Fine Arts for high school and learned a mix of traditional and Western techniques but the official teaching philosophy of the school was "Social Realism". He was told that an artists learned this way so that they could become "a screw inside the great revolutionary machine." In 1966 Chairman Mao launched the Cultural Revolution. At first Zhang Hongtu was swept up in Mao's idealism. His enthusiasm for this purpose waned, though, when he witnessed members of the red guard beat a man to death after labeling him a capitalist. For college, he attended the Arts and Crafts Academy, but during his stint, the whole student body was sent for "re-education" and learned to work in the rice fields, and were only able to paint in their free time. Upon his return, he was assigned to create designs for a jewelry factory, which was ironic since wearing jewelry was considered "bourgeious" and thus condemned. He took an opportunity in 1982 to move to the United States and study at the Art Student League in New York City. This was the time when he reflected heavily on his upbringing during the Cultural Revolution, and the differences in perspective between East and West (MoMAO.com, n.d.).


 * Personal Interpretations**. I chose this work because I enjoy a witty metaphor, and art works that provide an opportunity for the viewer to explore through interaction. I am also awe struck by the adoration and reverence Chinese citizens still have for a man who was responsible for so much suffering and death. Zhang Hongtu's work uses humor to knock Mao's sun out of the sky and back down to earth. It humanized the self proclaimed "Great Helmsman" which in turn frees the artist from his struggle to emancipate himself from the Mao's warped Ideological worldview. Like most Political Pop art, Zhang Hongtu's work uses humor and irony to deconstruct revolutionary images and icons, but I believe for him, these works are the result of very personal disection of his life in China, only possible after he had moved away.

//Print Sources//
 * References.**
 * Barme, G. (1996). Shades of Mao: the posthumous cut of the great leader: Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
 * Information on Chairman Mao and the significance of his image in art.
 * Chengfeng, G. (2010). Tendencies in Chinese pop. In Wu Hung (Ed.) Contemporary Chinese art: Primary documents. (171-179). New York: Museum of Modern Art.
 * This source contains information on the Political Pop movement in China.
 * Dal Lago, F. (1999). Personal Mao: Reshaping an Icon in Contemporary Chinese Art. //Art Journal//, //58//,(2) 46-59. Published by: College Art Association, Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/777948
 * This article focuses on the the way Mao's icon is used in Contemporary Chinese art.
 * Hay, J. (1995). Zhang Hongtu/Hongtu Zhang, An interview . In Hay J. (Ed.) Boundaries in China. London: Reaktion Books Ltd
 * Hay's interview with the Zhang Hongtu gives first hand insight into the meaning and purpose behind his work.
 * Perkins, M. (2010). Cultural knowledge on display: Chinese and haudenosaunee fieldnotes. In A. Schneider & C. Wright (Eds.). Between art and anthropology: Contemporary ethnographic practices. New York: Berg.
 * This chapter contains information on Mao, the cultural revolution and its affect on art.

//Online Sources//.
 * Art Speak China,( 2011, November 6). Retrieved December 12, 2011 from @http://www.artspeakchina.org/mediawiki/index.php/Zhang_Hongtu_%E5%BC%B5%E5%AE%8F%E5%9C%96
 * Ethan Cohen Fine Arts Gallery, (n.d). Retreived December 11, 2011 from @http://www.ecfa.com/site/main.php
 * This is the gallery that represents Zhang Hongtu and has information on the artwork.
 * PBS - American Experience (1999). //Ping Pong Diplomacy.// Retrieved December 18, 2011 from @http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/china/peopleevents/pande07.html
 * This online article provides information on "Ping Pong Diplomacy".
 * Studio Door China, (n.d.). Retrieved December 11, 2011 from @http://www.studiodoorchina.com/artists/profile_biography/38
 * This site has background information on the artist.
 * Zhang Hongtu's Museum of My Art Only, (2010) Retrieved December 11, 2011 from @http://www.momao.com
 * This is the artist's web site. It contains the images above, autobiographical information, artist statements, and links to articles about his work.
 * This is the artist's web site. It contains the images above, autobiographical information, artist statements, and links to articles about his work.

//Video Sources//.
 * Wang, M. (Producer & Director). (2006). //Yellow Ox Mountain.//[Motion Picture]. United States: Three Waters Productions LLC.
 * This is a documentary about Zhang Hongtu and another artist. In it, the artist speaks about his work in general, and specifically about //Ping Pong Mao.//