RED versus GREEN

Wu Shaoxiang and Jiang Shuo are a husband and wife team of Chinese artists. 
After the massacre in the Tiananmen Square in 1989, they immigrated to Austria, where they settled in Klagenfurt, Carinthia and established there a thriving art gallery.

Their latest exhibition in 2014 at the Werner Berg Museum in Bleiburg, Carinthia, called "Red versus Green" concentrates upon the juxtaposition of these colours in the realm of painting as well as philosophy.

Since the beginning of the communist dictatorship under Mao Zedong, Red has stood for Mao's ideology and "Mao's Red Book" was in evidence everywhere.
In modern China western, capitalistic ideas, with the demand for the American Dollar, also called "Greenback" ( but without its essential ideology of freedom and democracy ) have dictated Chinese Life in general, and artistic expression specifically.

Wu Shaoxiang and Jiang Shuo have taken a critical, but also humerous look at the Chinese Red and the American Green. Their work may still be viewed in the Werner Berg Museum in Bleiburg Carinthia.

The artist pair, Wu Shaoxiang and Jiang Shuo

during the opening ceremony of their show in Bleiburg, Carinthia.

This bust of Mao Zedong is fashioned of bronze impressions of the American Dollar.

It stands on a pedestal with the inscription:

I love M

Whereby the 'M' may stand for Mao, 

but, more likely it represents the golden arches of McDonald's.

Once again showing the inevitable transition

from Mao's Communism to Western Capitalism.

Here, Mao sits with a broad smile. 

His red tie features  

the Sickle and Hammer

and the Dollar sign.

The "Great Leap Forward"

shows a member of "the Red Guards"

leaping over a red apple.

One wonders if the apple refers to New York

which, in America is often called "the Big apple"

Two "Red Guards" lifting Mao's  "Red Book" 

in the sculpture called "Big Stride"

A Chinese mother, holding Mao's  Red Book in her right hand, 

seems desperately to struggle with her three children

who are more interested in a "cell phone", a can of  "Coca Cola"

and a set of ear phones, probably listening to Rock and Roll.

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Please come to Bleiburg and see this and other wonderful art exhibits in the Werner Berg Museum.
so asks
Bertstravels.