Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Cristina de Middel
Photographer Cristina de Middel’s new book Party is meant to question the idea of political power in a playful way. In the book, de Middel has taken the original text from Chairman Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book and redacted most of the words, creating new and biting quotes that mock the statements of this once-powerful communist leader of China. Alongside the text, she’s also included her own photos of contemporary China that are another way of poking fun.
“Political speech is like advertising,” says de Middel about Mao’s over-the-top language in the Little Red Book, which was meant to galvanize popular support for his brand of communism. “There is some interesting deepness, but it is not in the message, it is in the strategy.”
Mao’s strategy was to flood China with his missive. First published in 1966, the Little Red Book, or Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong as its officially known, is second only to the Bible as the most printed book in history. Over a billion copies have circulated. Many people in China revere Mao to this day, and he is still credited with modernizing the country by transforming it from an agrarian to an industrial economy. But others see Mao as the worst type of dictator, one whose rule caused 40-70 million people to die from starvation, forced labor, and executions.
De Middel chose to lampoon the Little Red Book because it was at the height of its circulation during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, a brutal purge of capitalist, traditional, and cultural elements in Chinese society that led to many of those deaths. Her project also comes at an opportune time, because the Chinese government recently published an official redux version of the Little Red Book. Even though successive Chinese governments have distanced themselves from Mao’s doctrine-—-famously, they stated in 1981 that Mao was “70 percent right, 30 percent incorrect” in his policies and decision-making—they apparently want to keep his legacy alive and control his image as best they can.
In terms of presentation, Party is bound in a soft, red cover with embossed gold font. At only 8.9 x 12.7cm, it purposely replicates the compact original that was designed to fit inside the pockets of Red Army soldiers’ uniforms.
As serious as the topic of Mao’s controversial rule can be, de Middel’s approach is laugh-out-loud funny at times. Her modifications are satire at its best and the visual puns come thick and fast—a photo of a paper tiger next to the words ‘Tigers are really powerful,’ a photo of young ballerinas frozen in gesture toward one another beside ‘Enemies without guns struggle,’ and an almost inedible plastic-looking chicken accompanied by the text ‘Food that is not good.’
While shaping her hacked-up, but always grammatically correct quotes, de Middel admits that she was looking to go over the top.
“When there was more than one possibility I would go for the most absurd or funny one,” she says.
‘If there is to be a revolution there is to be a party,’ reads Party’s first sutured quote. The book’s a fun read, but it might even get you thinking about how we all can rearrange the script, no matter how forcefully it’s been recited in the past. For all its sarcasm, Party is in fact lovable and optimistic.
“It taught me two things,” says de Middel of making the book: “That things change and things can be changed.”
No comments:
Post a Comment