Andy Warhol

Lerici, Castello di Lerici, Andy Warhol in Italia, 1995-96
Turin, Museo Dell'Automobile Carlo Biscaetti di Ruffia; Genova, Palazzo Ducale, Andy Warhol - Viaggio in Italia, 1996-7, p. 93, illustrated in colour
Ludwigsburg, Kunstverein, Andy Warhol, 2001
New York, L&M Arts, Andy Warhol: Mao, 2006, no. 18, illustrated in colour

Andy Warhol's Mao series of 1973 evinced an astute political awareness and heralded a new period of stylistic creativity for the artist. It appropriates the image of Chairman Mao that was ubiquitous in every schoolroom, shop front and public institution across the country and was reproduced on the front page of Quotations from Chairman Mao TseTung - Mao's 'Little Red Book' - which had a print run estimated at over 2.2 billion.

Warhol's juxtaposition of the mythic, deified image of the Communist leader within an art form that fetishized consumerist objects is wonderfully subversive. This effect is compounded by the dominance of the red colour of the canvas, immediately referencing the ubiquity of the Communist red flag and evoking the omnipresence of the colour in the Chinese political and national psyche. Further colour symbolism is evoked through the yellow of the Chairman's face: yellow being the colour in Imperial China that was strictly and exclusively to be worn only by the emperor. Thus Warhol adeptly conflates not only the celebrity and the politician, the communistic and the consumerist, but also clashes the two directly oppositional systems of Imperial and Communist China. Throughout the Cultural Revolution of the previous decade Mao sought to extinguish popular culture and substitute his own image in place of the stars of stage and screen. Here Warhol ironically fulfils Mao's wish, investing him with the same treatment bestowed on American icons of Pop.