One of my current projects is writing a guidebook on calligraphy and contemporary art - made all the more interesting by the fact that everything I write has to pass the beady evil eye of the censors before it gets published.
I'm still not that far into this book - but I can see that writing about contemporary art without mentioning its political content is going to be a challenge. However, even when discussing calligraphy this is a pretty tall order.
Take Chairman Mao as an example. The official line, as I understand it, is that although he made a few mistakes he was basically a great patriot and revered gentle giant among the Chinese people. His calligraphy is so admired it has even been made into a computer font. All of which is very interesting and nice.
But it doesn't change the fact that
Mao was a mass murdering prick!
He was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people!
If he was still in charge China would be so far up shit creek it wouldn't even matter if the country had a paddle!
Which is, of course, what I really want to write. So how to get around this curly question of ethics? The way I've done it is not mention Mao's name until the very last sentence of the text. In everything I've written up to that point the discussion focuses on the non-controversial aspects of his life and his particular style of writing. But I think this is particularly lame.
However, the only other option i can think of is going in completely the other direction and speak in terms of “the people’s glorious struggle against the capitalist-imperialist invaders and their vanguard, the religious missionaries.”
(Thankyou Granite Studio) Possibly, I could also mention the fact that Tibet is, was and always has been a part of China. At least if I follow this line some savvy readers may pick up a whiff of sarcasm.
Does anyone have any other ideas?
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2 comments:
I don't really understand why the issue of Mao as a political figure should be brought up in a book about calligraphy. In my opinion you would go off the topic trying to give your perspective on that particular time of history. Do you really think people will look for this kind of stuff in your book?
What happened then was an objective historical reality that certainly had an impact on every aspect of life and culture.
So for me talking about what Mao did would be like saying: "By the way, the sky is blue and the grass is green".
And let's not forget that what is happening in any country under any kind of leadership is always a collective experience rather than someone's independent actions. Mao did not kill all those millions with his own hands neither did he destroy any of the artworks by himself. This was done by millions of other people who together with Mao were responsible the madness that ruled the country during the cultural revolution.
It would be very convenient to blame the tragedy on particular leaders or even stigmatize whole nations calling them forever uncapable of being "real humans".
Human history is a collective growth process that is multi-dimentional. It cannot be studies and analyzed by generalizations.
Well ths book is a guidebook about calligraphy, however Mao was a political leader first and foremost and a calligrapher a distant second. So divorcing his calligraphy from the rest of his life - especially because of the coercive nature of the censors, seems pretty ridiculous.
What would make a good read is to go through Mao's life and discuss how he poured out some of thoughts in his writing, mention the fact that these things happened and those things happened, and that he talked about in in this way and that way. But I can't do that, because the government is too god damn paranoid about calling a spade a spade.
"So for me talking about what Mao did would be like saying: "By the way, the sky is blue and the grass is green"."
This is a patently ridiculous claim to make. It convinces me you have been paid to make this comment. As if Mao would have been a famous calligrapher if he was not a political leader. Furthermore, no matter what famous calligrapher I discuss, I always add info about their backgrounds. It helps bring the reader closer to a sense of understanding and appreciating the person, and by extension their art - which is the whole purpose of the book.
"It would be very convenient to blame the tragedy on particular leaders or even stigmatize whole nations calling them forever uncapable of being "real humans"."
I have no idea what you are talking about here.
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