I LOVE MAO ZEDONG / I HATE THE DALAI LAMA
(Beijing, 2008)

I LOVE MAO ZEDONG / I HATE THE DALAI LAMA researched the possibilities for creating critical models within the context of the People’s Republic of China. In the 798 Art District, Beijing, the artists freely distributed 250 T-shirts on which the anagrams “OOZE AMONG LIVED” (I love Mao Zedong), and “HAIL DAHLIA EAT MEAT” (I hate the Dalai Lama) were printed. Both T-shirts also featured the address of a website with the same sentence as URL (http://www.oozeamonglived.com and http://www.haildahliaeatmeat.com). The central topic of research was the mechanics of doublespeak: by communicating the two statements in such a distorted way, a potential critical distance appeared “inside” the statements itself. By introducing this distance within two statements which fundamentally emphasized the opinion of the Chinese authorities, a critical tension appeared within them.

Concept and production in cooperation with Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei