Mao Tongqiang

毛强

Mao Tongqiang is a painter and photographer. Born in 1960, Mao lives and works in Yinchuan. He graduated in 1980 from the Fine Arts department of Ning Xia University and continued his advanced training at Zhe Jiang Fine Arts Academy.

I Have a Dream (2011) is not the first work by Mao to embody the failures of idealism. In 2005, the artist began collecting what he described as discarded agricultural ‘tools’, antiquated by the changing needs of society. He ended up with a room full of 30,000 sickles and hammers – the symbols of the emblem of the Community party. Long after its heyday had passed, Mao had heard the party’s rallying cry – ‘Workers of the world, unite!’ – and brought together its workers’ tools, although the workers themselves had long proved more difficult to organize. ‘Tools’ (2005–08) is a testament to the ideology’s futilities.

morbi

Other and former works: