Framed Mao

May, 2016 - China

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Forty years after his death, Mao Tsé-Tung is framed and hung on walls around China. Pictures in large and gold-colored frames or simply printed in big sheets of paper are visible in restaurants, groceries, hidden alleys, homes and living rooms. Mao’s face appears between pictures of traditional Chinese dishes, lists of food prices, wall fans, mirrors or other photographs.

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​Born in 1893, Mao died on September 9, 1976, aged 82. The communist revolutionary and founding father of the People’s Republic of China was the principal Chinese Marxist theorist that led China’s Cultural Revolution. Mao Tsé-Tung left a controversial legacy and he is seen as a dictator or a political genius.