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Giant Chairman Mao

This extraordinary Mao statue has been built near Changsha in central China. The statue measures 32 meters high and 83 by 41 meters on the ground and is made of granite. All pretty amazing but what I think is interesting is that it shows a young Mao rather than the usual depiction of the Chairman which covers the elder statesmen look exhaustively.

Danwei has an interview with Xie Liwen, a professor at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts who was on the creative team.

He says “This design isn’t all that strange. The Mao statues people typically see are mostly of him standing and waving, or else fairly formal and serious. During the creation of this statue of a seated, young Mao Zedong, we were particularly concerned with differentiating it from past images,” said Xie Liwen.

The design of the seated, young Mao statue was hatched in 2006. “Our first concern was uniqueness and artistry,” said Xie. He said that at the suggestion Li Ming, president of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and another lead designer, they collected images of Mao at different stages of his life, ultimately selecting Mao at 32. “That was the year he wrote ‘Changsha,’ and besides, we wanted the design to capture the expansive abandon of the poem.”

For the torso of the young Mao Zedong statue, the creative team chose the form of a mountain: “It expresses Mao’s magnificence, and also shows that he came out of Shaoshan.”

A range of photos of a more elder Mao’s is below. Which do you prefer?

Chinese Revolutionary Art is coming up for sale in London for the first time – what would Mao think? Looking at this article from the the UK’s Telegraph newspaper he might be surprised to find what original posters are now worth. I found this interesting as some of the prices quoted are not too far off what I have seen them for sale at in Beijing’s Panjiayuan market. In this market there is a largely reproduction goods for sale to tourists but there is one building which houses furniture on the ground floor and upstairs a whole section dedicated to the real communist era’s memorabilia. Here you will find original posters priced at many thousands of Yuan each.

A fascinating set of photos taken from 1966 to 1970 courtesy of the China Daily.

I’m always interested in photography from the Mao era. These photos are particularly interesting as some of them show the Chinese building the TAZARA railway that goes from Tanzania to Zambia. I took that back in 1993 and perhaps it can be considered my first Chinese journey.