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- Author: Jacopo Galimberti x
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Could one at once be a Maoist and poke fun at Mao’s cult? This is the central issue explored in Jacopo Galimberti’s chapter, which investigates aspects of Italian Maoism as they were played out in four publications: the hardline newspaper Servire il Popolo, the counter-cultural magazine Re Nudo, the intellectual periodical Che Fare and the fanzine A/traverso. By 1976 some Italian militants were advocating a new form of Maoism that conflated pop culture, autonomist Marxism, Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s philosophy and, last but not least, avant-garde art.
Many people in the West can recognise an image of Mao Zedong (1894–1976) and know that he was an important Chinese leader, but few appreciate the breadth and depth of his political and cultural significance. Fewer still know what the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–76) was, or understand the extent of its influence on art in the West or in China today. This anthology, which is the first of its kind, contends that Maoism and the Chinese Cultural Revolution were dominant cultural and political forces in the second half of the twentieth century – and that they continue to exert influence, globally, right up to the present. In particular, the book claims that the Chinese Cultural Revolution deserves a more prominent place in twentieth-century art history. Exploring the dimensions of Mao’s cultural influence through case studies, and delineating the core of his aesthetic programme, in both the East and the West, constitute the heart of this project. While being rooted in the tradition of social art history and history, the essays, which have been written by an international community of scholars, foreground a distinctively multidisciplinary approach. Collectively they account for local, regional and national differences in the reception, adoption and dissemination of – or resistance to – Maoist aesthetics.
Art and images were and continue to be central channels for the transnational circulation and reception of Maoism. While there are several books about the significance of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, this collection of seventeen essays constitutes the first effort to demonstrate the global influence of Maoism on art and images, from 1945 to the present. The Introduction explores the protean quality of this political phenomenon, especially when it crossed paths with, and was expressed through, the visual arts. After providing an overview of the contents and organisation of the chapters, which challenge the traditional geographies of art history, the Introduction states that collectively, the studies reveal that the cultural contradictions that are always present in art and art history research remain a powerful source of political social, and aesthetic transformation.