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 “pre-digital” 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/maofever.htm

Revolutionary songs

• http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/China/CRSongs/crsongs.htm

“Mao fever” in 1990s

• 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?

The East is Red, pop version (1990)

• http://www.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/conf/propaganda/musik.html

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 Mao10,000 Years, 2006; the red curtain

Gao Qiang, 2006

Weakening state control?

• 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

• 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

• 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=jFigXCxdM4o&feature=related

• Christie’s predicting upswing April 2010 Reuters:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1oTKbtP0gA

Concluding thoughts

• Maoism still central to ruling ideology…

• Pop cultural and artistic trends chipping away at message