Painting Mao's Words: Contemporary Landscape Paintings by Lee Chun-yi

The relationship between painting and poetry has a long history in Chinese art. Contemporary artist Lee Chun-yi (b. 1965) has created a group of landscape paintings that seeks to reinterpret this relationship. He does so through the poetry of former Communist leader Mao Zedong (1893-1976).

A survey of Lee's landscapes reveals two artistic directions to his handling of the subject matter. In one direction, he creates works that mock the ideology and sentiments of the Maoist era. However, the majority of his landscapes seek to move beyond the seemingly inescapable bias of this period and encourage a separation of meaning from the poems' original political and historical context. In the artist's view, only when the words of Mao Zedong are divested of their "emotional baggage" can they be utilized for serious artistic exercises in exploring the shades of meaning between text and image.

Dany Chan is Assistant Curator for Exhibition Projects at the AAM, specializing in Chinese art history. She received her MA from Brown University and her BA from Colby College. Since joining the museum, she has assisted with the Shanghai exhibition (February 12 – September 5, 2010).

Dany Chan's publications include the exhibition catalogue, Shanghai: Art of the City (2010), "Shanghai Graphic Arts, 1876-1876: A Proposal" in Orientations (January/February 2010), and a forthcoming article in Modern China Studies, "Art and Politics in Today's China and Taiwan" (2011) on contemporary landscape paintings by Lee Chun-yi.