Context

‘Maoism’, a word thrown around in today’s day and age is actually, a theory by Mao Zedong, the primary propagator of the Communist ideology across China in the twentieth century. ‘Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung’, colloquially known as ‘the little red book’ is essentially, a book containing writings and aphorisms by Mao Zedong. Its aim was to distill in the minds of the masses from the bourgeois elitists to semi-literate peasants, the idea and power of communism.

Artist

Cristina De Middel, born in 1975, is a Spanish documentary photographer who rose to fame after her revolutionary work called the Afronauts released in 2012. She has created a very intriguing range of work with the help of meddling with different photographic practices such as documentary and conceptual photographs. With an urge to reimagine existing recurrent motifs and aesthetics, she builds layered meanings and ideas about the persistently changing world.

Artwork

Since ‘the little red book’ prominently stands out as a ubiquitous iconic symbol of Communism in China and the ten-year long period of the infamous Cultural revolution, it is quite a bold yet intriguing decision on the part of the artist, Cristina De Middel to choose it as the framework for her photobook ‘Party’ and make it seem like a replica of the original. The structure and the content of the book connects it to the country’s political background. However, the inclusion of photographs and the exclusion of majority of the text leaving only a few words behind indicates how in the modern times China has progressed and changed. Moreover, the pictures have been shot in tranquil and beautiful locales giving no indicators about the location further creating an uncertain state of past and present. This interesting juxtaposition of very journalistic photographs inspired by street photography with indirect hard hitting and witty remarks creates extensive layers in the work and steers the book away from being monotone and superficial.

The distinctly erased text using a whitener creates an aura of enigma making the reader wonder about the covered text. This also relates to the larger picture of censorship of information in China. Although the Chinese government asserts that it is its legal right to control the circulation of information on the internet within its territory, many people are vehemently against the filtering of media because by erasing the undesired information and controlling the content dissemination, it, to a point, manipulates the opinions and ideas of the population.

While there has been extensive debate in the realm of photography about the assistance of text with a photograph as it directs the reading of the image in a particular direction, in this case, the captions provide the much-needed social and political context and change the meaning of the image entirely. An instance of this is how the image of a man holding a mike is accompanied by the text, “a sound system” making a satirical and ironical reference to the government about it being “a sound system”. Similarly, the book begins with a joyful picture of a girl, in a white floral dress, smiling and dancing and is flanked by a serious message, “if there is to be a revolution, there must be a party”. The contrast of the twofold text, verging on dark humor with the innocent image invokes distorted and disturbing feelings.

The work of an artist, in many cases, distances itself from what the author initially intended for it to be. As mentioned in an interview, Cristina De Middel talked about portraying the hypocrisy regarding China which, in actuality does not show through vividly. The hypocrisy, according to the artist is that while China claims to be a communist state, it is inclining towards capitalism. However, all the images are indeed extremely thought provoking and make one take a second look which does account for some a success on the artist’s part. They grapple with many of China’s current issues and challenges such as poverty, extra marital affair, corruption and much more in a light and humorous fashion with underlying subtle yet piercing comments. Art sometimes acts as a rebellious thorn, flourishing against its natural surroundings to ignite and pirouette conversations, dissents and ideas about things which are unsaid and sometimes, unknowingly, the rigid norm.