Beyond the Future: Papers from the Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Long Live Chairman Mao, 1 959, Shanghai This is a poster celebrating the 1 Oth ann iversary of the Republ ic. The supreme Hua B iao in the corner symbolises Tiananmen Square. The mother and her child a re looking up at the picture of Chairman Mao on the Tiananmen rostrum expressing their wishes that he l ive forever and ever. Humans, however, can't live forever. In 1 959, the Soviet Un ion and Eastern Europe were in the m idst of criticising Stal inism and trying to go beyond the cult of the ind ividual . But Ch ina had to patiently wait for another 20 years . Good Sisters at the Gathering of Outstanding Workers, 1 964, Shanghai 1 964 was the 1 5th ann iversary of the Republic. Female model workers in th is picture are standing on Tiananmen Square. Lamp-posts wh ich symbol ise socialist industrialisation and modernisation become the major background of the picture. Only half of the Hua Biao is showing . I Love Beijing Tiananmen, 1 972, Baoding China in the Cultural Revolution 'went beyond' the Hua Biao pillars, as the pillars were at the time considered by the Red Guards to be the symbol of imperial power. The Hua Biao gives way to its substitute, the lamp-post, and has disappeared from the virtual reality of the picture. The children who are dancing and singing and loving Tiananmen Square come from Tibet and Xinjiang, places not unknown for their separatist tendencies . The Grand Tiananmen, 1 975, Shanghai The images and colours here , have been 'virtualised' into a d reamlike state. There are no Hua Biao, only lamp-posts . Our Great Socia list Motherland is Flourishing , 1 984, Beijing This is a poster for the 35th anniversary of the Republic. The Hua Biao and the lions in the front of Tiananmen Square are back in the picture, but Tiananmen itself is m issing . On National Day that year, Deng Xiaoping, for the first and last time, stood on the rostrum of Tiananmen Square and reviewed the parade of over a million people. The lead role i n the play that day was Deng Xiaoping, not the picture of Mao Zedong hung on Tiananmen Square . In order to avoid showing Mao's portrait, the artist had to remove the whole of Tiananmen from view. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Republic. Renovation of Tiananmen Square has just finished . The once glorious lamp-posts have g iven way to the modern new millennium lamps which are ready to welcome a national parade next month . That hasn't been seen in China for 1 5 years. We have now gone beyond the less modernised lamp-posts but the Hua Biao still stays, waiting to be 'gone beyond' in the future by its commercial or other fashionable substitutes. The inflatable Hua B iao we sh ipped from China is its modern incarnation. Our plastic version was erected on Wang Fu J ing Street, China's largest mall, as an advertisement in the Spring Festival, 1 998. At the beginning of this century, Wang Fu J ing was once named Morrison St, after George Morrison , an Australian who had influenced modern China. Going to the Olympics, 1 956, Beijing I did not end up becoming a tank driver, rather someone who collects Chinese junk. As part of my collection of cultural junk I have over one thousand posters . I may h ave bored you already with these posters, so here's the last one . Here's one of a Chinese torch speared into Melbourne in anticipation of the 1 956 Games. As some may know, that year athletes from the PRC d idn't end up realising their future - Australia granted visas to the athletes of the Republic of China, Taiwan, instead . A poster that has not been publ icly posted is an incomplete work of art, an unrealised dream . But we could say that this Olympic torch poster has completed the mission today - we have 'speared' our Hua Biao into the grounds of the QAG although we are many years late and though the Hua B iao is only a large nylon sack of inflated air. 32