陳凱: 洛杉磯豬年畫展及中國歷史真假 Mao Portrait Incident in Alhambra 2007

http://www.committee100.org/media/media_...arlie%20Woo.pdf

Click the link below to view the video clip 点击链锁观看“毛像事件”视频：

http://www.youmaker.com/video/sv?id=a2ec...207768269ac0001



Artist: Jeffrey Ma

Confronting Bodies: Alhambra, California city officials, exhibit organizer Pinki Chen

Date of Action: February, 2007

Specific Location: Alhambra, California

Description of Artwork: Jeffrey Ma's screen prints were made in honor of the Chinese New Year and the twentieth anniversary of Andy Warhol's death. In the piece portraits of Mao are juxtaposed with portraits of George Washington. Their faces are superimposed over piggy banks in reference to savings and wishes of good fortune that are associated with the Chinese New Year. Ma chose Washington and Mao because their faces both appear on currency.

Description of Incident: Jeffrey Ma's screen prints were exhibited along with about thirty other pieces honoring the Chinese New Year. The exhibit was shown in the lobby of the Alhambra City Hall. City Hall received a couple of complaints from people offended by the juxtaposition of Washington and Mao. The City Clerk who coordinates city art exhibits says the piece was taken down on the recommendation of the exhibit organizer Pinki Chen. Chen, however, says the city staff made the decision to remove the piece. The artists in the show asked the city to put the piece back up but after receiving no commitment they completely dismantled the exhibit in protest.

Results of Incident: First Amendment organizations have come to the defense of the artists and the exhibit organizer and some city officials have said removing the piece because of a couple of complaints is not correct procedure. There are, however, no plans to re-hang the exhibit.

Source: SGVTribune.com

Submitted By: NCAC

LA Times Article about the Incident: http://www.committee100.org/media/media_...arlie%20Woo.pdf

-------------------------------------------------------------

Seeing Red Over Mao in Alhambra

Values in China today are only carried forward by the culture largely as a result of the destruction of ethical and civic standards wrought by Mao during the Cultural Revolution. In other words, in my experience, there is generally no honor given in China today for verbal or written contracts and the visitor will find him or herself at the mercy of Chinese pragmatism.

In China today portraits of Mao are everywhere and due to the controlled press few Chinese know the truth of their own modern history. And I am horrified when I hear “Maoism” being bandied about…even here in Oaxaca Mexico!

To understand how this came about, to understand the ability of the Chinese to dupe Westerners and to understand the anger of the Chinese community in Alhambra over the hanging of Warhol-like images of Mao you can read the 1995 “Mao: The Unknown Story,” an 832-page biography of Mao written by the husband and wife team of historians, Jon Halliday and Jung Chang who herself was a Red Guard during the Revolution. It depicts Mao Zedong, the former paramount leader of China and Chairman of the Communist Party of China, as being responsible for mass murder (upwards of 30-70 million people) on a scale greater than that committed under the rule of Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin.

The authors spent 12 years researching the Russian and Chinese archives after the fall of the Soviet Union and interviewed hundreds of eye-witnesses to events largely fabricated by Mao including the Long March. In a speech given at Stanford University, former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski mentioned a conversation that he once had with Deng Xiaoping, who commented that the taking of Luding Bridge had been extremely easy and was dramatised for propaganda. At that point, Chairman Deng smiled and said, “Well, that’s the way it’s presented in our propaganda. We needed that to express the fighting spirit of our forces. In fact, it was a very easy military operation.”

Perry Link, Professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University, wrote in The NY Times Literary Supplement:

“Foreigners who cannot see past the surfaces become trophies of the system’s deception and sometimes even turn into official “friends of China” (although, to the insiders, little true friendship, and even less respect, is actually involved). Part of Chang and Halliday’s passion for exposing the “unknown” Mao is clearly aimed at gullible Westerners. Mao entranced Edgar Snow, (the journalist who carried forward Mao’s propaganda in “Red Star Over China) and Zhou Enlai charmed Henry Kissinger, and in both cases the consequences for Western understanding of China were severe… If the book sells even half as many copies as the 12 million of Wild Swans, (Chang’s immensely popular 3-generational epic) it could deliver the coup de grace to an embarrassing pattern of Western thinking.”

To top it off you can read the 1994 “The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao’s Personal Physician.” Written after the death of Mao when Dr. Li joined his sons being educated in Chicago, Illinois, the book is an intimate account of the bowels, the brains, and the psychic, as well as the physical, ailments of the late Chairman Mao Zedong, and is of the highest importance for revealing the unseemly private face and the destructive passions of the man whom the youth of the world long venerated as the savior of mankind, and for demonstrating with a wealth of evidence that the most damning previous accounts of Mao’s behavior fell lamentably short of the actual horrors Dr. Li witnessed.

This extremely detailed anatomy of the revolutionary who created the People’s Republic of China and then virtually destroyed his own creation is unique. Dr. Li saw Mao Zedong in all moods and at all times, from the insomniac vigor of 1955 to the protracted death scene of 1976.

During the arduous two decades that came close to destroying his own family life, Dr.Li saw a man who professed great concern for the Chinese masses, but repeatedly sacrificed them to his visions and his whims in spite of his propaganda in the “Little Red Book.” Mao could let millions die to further his dream of becoming an immortal by creating the “stage of pure Communism” over which Karl Marx rhapsodized.

He could also pass on his genital infections to the hundreds of young women with whom he slept, in part because he hoped to absorb their youthful energy. He could not be bothered to undergo the treatment that would have cured his ailments.

------------------------------------------------------------

Seeing Red Over Mao

After a complaint, Alhambra evicts a Warhol-style painting of the communist leader.

By David Pierson, LA Times Staff Writer
February 24, 2007

Mao Tse-tung’s image has received the iconic Andy Warhol treatment. It’s been plastered onto tens of millions of kitschy cigarette lighters, medallions, watches, T-shirts and snow domes.

Yet when a painting bearing the former Chinese communist leader’s visage was displayed this week as part of a lunar new year celebration in Alhambra, it set off a debate in Southern California’s Chinese community about ghosts from the past and the promise of the future.

A former basketball player for China’s national team demanded the city remove the painting, saying the display romanticized a despot responsible for the death and suffering of millions of Chinese. The artists behind the exhibit agreed that Mao was a tyrant but countered that Mao brought about a new era of Chinese nationalism, one that would springboard the nation into modern times.
———
In November, John Kong and a crew of three other artists — all from various Beijing art schools — started creating 35 silk-screen paintings playing off a Year-of-the-Boar theme with Andy Warhol-inspired renderings. At the request of a festival organizer, the paintings were put on display Feb. 1 at City Hall and were set to remain there until today’s new year parade.

The exhibit went on without a hitch until last week when someone walked into the lobby and noticed among all the paintings of pigs one that depicted Mao and George Washington’s images on piggy banks.

He told Kai Chen, the former basketball player who is now an author and real estate owner. Chen was so livid to learn that Mao was being displayed in a municipal building that he called the assistant city manager and demanded the artwork be removed. A day later on Feb. 16, the painting was gone.

The synopsis to Chen’s “One in a Billion: Journey Toward Freedom,” on Amazon.com said his family “endured political persecution during the most oppressive years of Chinese modern history — the Cultural Revolution.”

Chen, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1981 after falling in love with an American exchange student, said he and his family were exiled to Manchuria in 1965 because of their ties to the toppled Nationalist regime and Taiwan.

“This is a moral issue. You cannot commercialize Mao,” he said. “They will repress Mao’s true image to save face and for national pride. This is a perversion.”

-------------------------------------------------------------

Portrait by Chinese artists in Alhambra City Hall:



前八一队成员陈凯公反对展出毛泽东画像

www.kaichenforum.com 陈凯论坛

-----------------------------------------------------------

【大纪元3月16日讯】（大纪元记者袁玫洛杉矶报导）

阿罕布拉市府在中国年期间举行画展，将毛泽东像和美国总统华盛顿像并列展出，引起侨界部份人士反对。其中曾为中国解放军81篮球队运动员的陈凯成为海外公开反对前领导人毛泽东暨共党体制的第一人，陈凯表示：将文化大革命的罪恶之事，拿来美化、商业化是无法容忍的。

显示中国人道德的虚无

陈凯说此事显示了中国人道德的虚无。毛泽东是混世大魔王是人类的罪人，共党是邪恶的象征；而美国总统华盛顿像代表自由，是人类的救星。在美国钞票上印有“in god we trust ”，而不为“in goverment we trust”。中国人在共党统治下普遍为无神论者，完全不将上帝作为一种道德准则的存在，任意将上帝作为藉口的工具。所有中国人无道德可言，“胜王败寇”深深印烙在人脑子里，以为华盛顿也是“胜王败寇”的情况，而将两像并列，陈凯表示，来美国的许多中国人仍旧没有走到自由的世界。

支持者郭树人说明，今年是反右五十周年、文革四十周年，目前许多论题仍是共党的禁忌，不能公开谈论。包括Henry张等人认为毛泽东像不在中国搞下是不行的，而陈凯为在海外出头抗议反对阿市将毛泽东像和美国总统华盛顿像并列的第一人。以国家篮球队员的身份，国家重点培养之人才，而出来反对批判，反差很大。

中国不把人当作人

1953年在北京出生的陈凯，小时候因有亲属在台湾加入国民党及空军，被贴上“黑五类”的标签。他的双亲和兄弟都被下放到东北通化劳改。他因高人一等的身材（200公分）和优异的技术，还是被征召进入当年最强的81篮球队。在解放军的国家队81队呆了6年。这期间也是第一次有机会出国到巴基斯坦。从而发现中共所言，皆为谎言，而相信共党所言者，都是受到欺骗的。

陈凯表示，人在中国被当作任人杀戮的牲畜，被当作任人利用的工具，被当作一部机器中任人放置的部件，被当作政府的负担。尤其在一胎制之后，中国人更被当作一种污染被政府控制以至灭绝。为人民服务为国家服务，早已成为中国人生存的唯一意义。中国的运动员、知识分子、官员、普通人都逃不过模式。像姚明目前仍是在共产党的控制下被政府利用的宣传工具。

陈凯表示，在中国长大的时候，每一个人都在告诉他是国家，文化与群体给予了个人生命的意义。但多年出访，终于认识到真理是刚好相反 ，“我们每一个个人每一刻都在用我们的思维与行为赋予国家，文化与群体它们的意义”。他看到美国的进步情况，决定为追求个人价值和理想，对自由的渴望，对信念追求而作努力。陈凯在其著作“一比十亿”“One In A Billion”传达了自己热情追求理想的努力，是他挑战共产制度成功的实例。他希望中国人能反省自己，发现个人价值，努力实践梦想。详情可上网站 www.freewebs.com/oneinabillion了解。

中国进步的希望只有在中共消亡之后才能出现

回想当年六四事件，陈凯表示，在大家脑海中是什么情况？坦克、机枪、火、烟、死伤的人民、眼泪、血，共党领导们无情木雕式的脸孔等等。到如今，所有的与那一天有关的信息与形象都被中国当政当局清除，中国人似乎也想将那些血腥景像与那一天从他们的知觉中永远消除。当这一切都过去时，天安门城楼上仍留下魔鬼般的暴君毛泽东的挂像与血腥五星旗。中国人所谈的都是如何挣钱、如何将自己儿女送到海外、如何在中国官途权途往上爬、如何不要扰乱由中共所维持的死水臭水秩序等。

陈凯表示，目前大陆在共党操控下，所有的中国人，都是只要别人比自己不好，就可得到满足，在那种国家中生活是很可怕的。面对这样混乱、残忍、迷信、无尽的流血、专制、绝望等等之国家，只有更无助无奈，走到默默的绝望深渊。

忽视历史者必定会重覆历史，陈凯呼吁大家扪心自问，在人们良知上，对共产党的合法性提出质问与疑问，不论它控制多少人，都是不合法的，因它不是建立在道德上，其所作所为皆是要掩饰它的非合法性。中共不倒，中国就没希望。只要毛泽东的画像仍存在，中国人心里就不会正常，不能证实自己的过去。天灭中共，是不变的天理，只有在中共灭亡之后，它所代表的专制暴政，在中国人灵魂的污染与压迫，统统送到历史的垃圾箱里去。如此，才能充满希望的看到新中国的曙光。(http://www.dajiyuan.com)

Artists pull works after City Hall bans Mao
陈凯抗议，毛像被除

-Washington print

By The Associated Press
02.24.07

ALHAMBRA, Calif. — Artists featured in a Chinese New Year exhibit at City Hall removed their works in anger over the city's banishment of a piece depicting communist dictator Mao Zedong next to George Washington.

The remaining 30 silk-screen prints were taken down by the artists on Feb. 20 after city staff removed a Jeffrey Ma piece pairing Mao and Washington. It was pulled because some observers found it offensive, the city said.

"They don't respect art and they don't respect artists," Ma said.

Ma and the three other artists in the exhibit decided to take everything down after the city balked at putting the Mao piece back up. The artists also retrieved the Mao piece stored in the City Clerk's office.

Four Chinese-American artists paid homage to Andy Warhol in the exhibit, which was scheduled to run through February.

"If this place is not interested in us, we are not interested in this place," artist John Kong said. "I understand people can have strong personal reactions to certain things. It's not wrong to express what he thinks when he sees this art.

"The wrong thing is that City Hall took the piece down."

It was described as "innocent, thoughtless censorship, but censorship nonetheless" by Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition.

"The appropriate response is not to suppress the original speech, but rather to encourage more expression so that the public is exposed to all these points of view," Scheer said.

It wasn't clear who made the decision to take the Mao piece down. City Clerk Frances Moore said there was a complaint and the Ma piece was removed Feb. 15 "at the direction" of organizer Pinki Chen.

"She wanted it down. They didn't want controversy," Moore said.

But Chen said city staff simply notified her as a courtesy.

"They called me and asked me if it was OK. I told them, 'It's your decision'... I would never say we should take it down because of a couple of people," Chen said.

Alhambra resident Henry Zhang, 41, says Mao is China's equivalent of Adolf Hitler and his portrait should not be displayed in public buildings. "He took away other people's freedom," Zhang said.

"I can't believe I came to America to seek freedom, to see that hanging in the City Hall lobby," said Kai Chen, 51, a Los Angeles resident who emigrated from China in 1981. "It is unbelievably politically ignorant, politically insensitive to say the least."

The print was taken down after the city received Kai Chen's complaint.

Pinki Chen said the only criteria for the artwork was a tie-in with the Year of the Boar.

The print by Ma imposes Mao and Washington's images onto four piggy banks. Their images were chosen because their faces are found on money, said Qing Nian Tang, an artist whose work was also in the exhibit.

Two other pieces show the Red Army with pig's heads, wielding paintbrushes and bayonets.

Mayor Stephen Sham, who was born in China, said last week that he was not offended by the print.

"It's an art exhibit — it's not a history exhibit," Sham said. "I think we have freedom of speech."

Alhambra is 10 miles east of Los Angeles.

洛杉矶时报关于我的抗议信的报道
LA Times' Article about My Protest

每日一语：

邪恶的猖獗是因为良德的沉默。 --- 无名者

The triumph of the evil is because of the silence from the good. --- Unknown

******************************************

Dear Visitors:

Though a small victory, it is nonetheless a significant one.

My friend Henry Zhang and I protested in Alhambra City Hall over the portrait of Mao side by side with the image of George Washington resulted in the removal of the paintings. I urge all of you, the good people with soul and conscience, to battle evil whenever and wherever you see it.

I now paste the LA Time's article (2/24/07) here for all of you to read. I hope you will post your own views and opinions here about the incident.

Best. Kai Chen 陈凯

----------------------------------------------------------

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-...ack=1&cset=true

They're seeing red over Mao

After a complaint, Alhambra evicts a Warhol-style painting of the communist leader. It inspired anger, amusement.

By David Pierson, Times Staff Writer
February 24, 2007

Mao Tse-tung's image has received the iconic Andy Warhol treatment. It's been plastered onto tens of millions of kitschy cigarette lighters, medallions, watches, T-shirts and snow domes.

Yet when a painting bearing the former Chinese communist leader's visage was displayed this week as part of a lunar new year celebration in Alhambra, it set off a debate in Southern California's Chinese community about ghosts from the past and the promise of the future.

A former basketball player for China's national team demanded the city remove the painting, saying the display romanticized a despot responsible for the death and suffering of millions of Chinese. The artists behind the exhibit agreed that Mao was a tyrant but countered that Mao brought about a new era of Chinese nationalism, one that would springboard the nation into modern times.

The debate bounced from holiday dinner banquets to Chinese-language talk radio after organizers of Alhambra's Chinese New Year festival — set to begin today — decided to remove the artwork from City Hall.

Many of the immigrants, who make up America's largest Chinese community, arrived in the San Gabriel Valley to get away from the repressive thumb of the Chinese communist government. And for decades, the community had an undeniable anti-communist bent.

But with the economic rise of China and the passing of generations, Chinese Americans have come to admire what the country has become while still being wary of the government.

Two years ago, a Chinatown businessman raised the red Chinese flag atop a building — a move that just a few years earlier would have certainly generated protests but ended up causing little rancor.

But the Mao paintings touched a chord.

Although some admit they have a conflicting view of Mao — not only recognizing the suffering that occurred under his rule but also his role in guiding China into becoming a global power — most are wondering what the fuss is all about.

They see the spat as overblown and are questioning how a single complaint could result in the removal of the artwork.

"We live in America. We see caricatures of George Bush and George Washington all the time. What's the big deal?" said Philip Young, president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Los Angeles Lodge. "I'm for free speech."

Some say it's too late to change the perception of Mao.

"He's such a pop icon, like the image of Che Guevara, that it has less meaning," said Patrick Lam, owner of Munky King, a toy art store in Chinatown.

The store recently sold out of a vinyl bust of Mao with Mickey Mouse ears. Lam tried to give the $200 item to his mother as a gift, but he said she was uneasy with the piece knowing that her parents had lived through the Cultural Revolution.

Charlie Woo, a toy manufacturer and a member of the influential Chinese American organization Committee of 100, said China's economy had taken more of the sting out of Mao's legacy.

"With China's turnaround, I think his harsh image has been softened," said the Hong Kong native who remembers nothing but vitriol for the communist leader when he lived in the former British colony. "I saw the story about the art exhibit in the Chinese Daily News and wasn't sure what to make of it. I'm just watching with amusement."

In November, John Kong and a crew of three other artists — all from various Beijing art schools — started creating 35 silk-screen paintings playing off a Year-of-the-Boar theme with Andy Warhol-inspired renderings. At the request of a festival organizer, the paintings were put on display Feb. 1 at City Hall and were set to remain there until today's new year parade.

The exhibit went on without a hitch until last week when someone walked into the lobby and noticed among all the paintings of pigs one that depicted Mao and George Washington's images on piggy banks.

He told Kai Chen, the former basketball player who is now an author and real estate owner. Chen was so livid to learn that Mao was being displayed in a municipal building that he called the assistant city manager and demanded the artwork be removed. A day later on Feb. 16, the painting was gone.

"We didn't mean to upset anyone," said City Manager Julio Fuentes. "There's a lot of history in this city, and we want to respect everyone's rights."

Kong and the other artists were so appalled by the decision that they drove their van to City Hall on Tuesday and reclaimed all their paintings.

"We didn't even ask for this show; the show came to us," Kong said from his Canoga Park studio Thursday.

He said artists in China had been experimenting with Mao's image for nearly two decades, the beginning of a period in which confidants and aides were coming forward to humanize — mostly in a negative light — the late dictator who had otherwise been portrayed divinely.

"Time passes on," said Kong, 54. "There's no more big brother in China. You can't do magazines or launch a private paper, but other than that, you enjoy freedom of speech."

Chen, the 6-foot-7 basketball player who fled China nearly three decades ago, said that's beside the point. "I can't demand Americans who view Andy Warhol to understand what Chinese have been through," he said. "But I do demand Chinese not to forget what Mao did."

Chen said that speaking out about the paintings was important, especially at a time when the prominence of China is rising both in the Chinese American community and the United States as a whole.

"There's a very unhealthy tendency to water down what the communists did," said Chen, 53.

When asked about how his family suffered during the Cultural Revolution, Chen said, "Read my book."

The synopsis to Chen's "One in a Billion: Journey Toward Freedom," on Amazon.com said his family "endured political persecution during the most oppressive years of Chinese modern history — the Cultural Revolution."

Chen, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1981 after falling in love with an American exchange student, said he and his family were exiled to Manchuria in 1965 because of their ties to the toppled Nationalist regime and Taiwan.

"This is a moral issue. You cannot commercialize Mao," he said. "They will repress Mao's true image to save face and for national pride. This is a perversion."

-------------------------------------------------------------
david.pierson@latimes.com