Often described through what its namesake Mao Zedong described as the “revolutionary struggle of the vast majority of people against the exploiting classes and their state structures,” Maoism retains a force whose magnitude we are only beginning to apprehend. Its impact on visual culture is especially profound: not only have depictions of Mao infiltrated nearly every corner of the globe, Maoist alignments course through many artworks made in an America that regards Maoism only through its worst excesses or as a blanket pejorative for any anti-capitalist position. Through, and beside, the works of Ed Bereal, Jim Dong, Nancy Hom, May Sun and Hung Liu, this talk considers Maoism as an angle of incidence through which to consider an un-American art history divorced from narratives of citizenship-based inclusion.
This event is presented as part of the Visual & Media Cultures Colloquium (VMCC) Series.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Joan Kee is Professor in the History of Art at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her books include Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method (2013), Models of Integrity: Art and Law in Post Sixties America (2019), and The Geometries of Afro Asia: Art beyond Solidarity (2023). A contributing editor at Artforum, and an editor-at-large for the Brooklyn Rail, she has written extensively on modern and contemporary art, including articles on the impact of legal jurisdiction on contemporary Chinese art and on how photography problematizes the concept of "peacetime." Her work has been supported by the Clark Art Institute, the Kresge Foundation, the National Gallery of Art, the Hyundai Tate Research Center, and MoMA.
ADMISSION
- Free and open to the public
- Attend online
- Register here
AUDIENCE ADVISORY
- This event has been rescheduled from originally advertised date of 5/1
