MCLC: Mao's Golden Mangoes and the CR

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Han Meng <hanmeng at gmail.com>
Subject: Mao's Golden Mangoes and the CR exhibition
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Mao's Golden Mangoes and the Cultural Revolution

http://www.rietberg.ch/en-gb/exhibitions/mao%27s-mangoes.aspx
(click to view Highlights of the exhibition)

15 February ­ 16 June 2013
Museum Rietberg Zürich

Why would anyone have the idea of preserving a half-rotten mango in
formaldehyde and cherish it as a great treasure? Why would wax imitations
of mangoes be carried in processions, and venerated like religious relics?
How could an innocuous fruit become the bearer of a powerful political
message? This exhibition tells the story of a most unusual propaganda
symbol in China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
(1966­1976). In 1966, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution as a
mass movement: he called upon school and university students to set about
creating a new society and eradicating everything that belonged to the
past. The young people accepted this task with enthusiasm ­ and rapidly
plunged the country into chaos. Two years later, Mao decided to bring the
movement back under the control of the Party. But officially he pronounced
that from now on the working class should be leaders in everything. It was
at precisely this time that Mao received a box of mangoes as a gift from
the visiting foreign minister of Pakistan. The very same night Mao ordered
that these exotic fruits should be presented to the workers. The mangoes
were quickly seen as a symbol of Mao¹s benevolence and devotion to the
masses, and became the focus of cult admiration. The symbol soon entered
popular culture, with mangoes decorating cups, bowls, cigarette packets,
badges, blankets and other everyday objects. For more than a year China
was gripped by mango fever. And then the mango vanished from the
propaganda repertoire, as quickly as it had come.