Lenin's Head

"Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenins Head" art installation in the City of Richmond, British Columbia, Canada by the Gao Brothers of China.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong

This large scale sculpture features two iconic figures in shiny polished stainless steel, a diminutive Miss Mao delicately balancing on the head Vladimir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary whose monumental ideas profoundly influenced Chinese political history. This potentially controversial sculpture is part of the Gao Brothers Miss Mao series, often described as cynical realism.

This sculpture can be read as a political narrative, as well as a reflection on the current nostalgic attitude toward Mao. The position and scale of the two figures simultaneously questions and ridicules their relative positions in an undeniable commentary. The Gao Brothers have consciously chosen to play the role of social critic and therefore walk a careful line in terms of politics.

City of Richmond
http://www.richmond.ca

The Gao Brothers
http://www.gaobrothers.net

Transpondency
http://www.transpondency.com

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• richmond
• BC
• canada
• gao
• brothers
• art
• controversy
• sculpture
• Vladimir
• Lenin
• Chairman
• Mao
• revolutionary
• communism
• marxism
• Russia
• China
• Soviet
• Union
• olympics
• Vancouver
• 2010
• history
• ideology
• statue

[transpondency]

It's there to provoke conversation. It's not a monument, it's an art piece. I happen to like it. I also enjoyed the upside down church sculpture "Device to Root Out Evil" that was removed from Vancouver a few years ago. I don't understand people's kneejerk condemnation and impulse for censorship. Isn't it our freedom of thought and expression the sort of virtue that sets us above these authoritarian governments which we so abhor?

[beavertoad]

lets put a statue up of an Afgani girl with her nose cut off for not following the principles of facist islam or a statue of gassed kurds by sadddam. lets get it all out there. Islamic sudanese ethnic cleansing. Chinese organ harvesting. Catholic paedophilia. everything that is repulsive in the world should be exposed, let's do it! let's make everybody happy!

[beavertoad]

Is this a permanent structure?

[LuxyKreynes]

This is DISGUSTING...Do any of you fucking tools know what LEnin did?

I am from Russia and I KNOW! he killed millions... maybe more than Hitler.

Every respectable Russian I speak to have had their family OBLITERATED by this man. I feel the same way about this statue as a WWII vet would feel about the statue of hitler. Poor Canada, wish you had your own identity then you wouldn't confuse multiculturalism with kissing commie ass.

[manitobatouch]

@Whiteblodder64 YOU ARE A CANADIAN HERO.

[maxrocks1]

@anmpir Not slavery at all. I HAVE done my research, and have members of my own family who have been residentially schooled, so I know about what I am talking.

[anmpir]

@maxrocks1 Not slavery per say, but it was an institutionalized and systematic form of racism, segregation and "reeducation". Do your research before minimizing one horrific injustice to another.

[maxrocks1]

@anmpir Residential schools are far from slavery. My people (Doukhobors) were also residentially schooled in the same manner by the Canadian government. I would never say that it was slavery (was it shitty? Yes. Was it cruel? Yes. Was it Slavery? Nope.) Natives had chattel slavery.

[anmpir]

@ktomasz999 it's actually a political statement against their ideologies, if you look closely instead of getting offended before analyzing the art in itself.

[anmpir]

@maxrocks1 residential schools. look em up. 

[191724]

BELA MONUMENTO AL VLADIMIR LENIN....MAO ESTAS EN EKVILIBRO SRU LA KAPON DE LENIN...JES, VI POVAS IMAGI MULTAJN AFEROJ...TRE PLACIS MIN CI TIU MONUMENTO...

VIAVA LENIN!!!! ( 1870-1924 )