Memory of the Window

Born in Dongsheng, Mongolia, in 1952, Zhang attended the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing before emigrating to Australia in 1985, and later to the United States in 1989. In this painting, the artist has employed Mao’s repeated image in a series of six windows to invoke memories of the Cultural Revolution. During this time of upheaval in China, over-zealous members of the Red Guard were known to ransack houses and smash windows. In an attempt to protect one’s house, the owner would put images of Mao in the windows to deter the vandals. As one of the broken window-panes attests, this strategy did not always work. Here, the artist not only critiques the ubiquity of Mao’s image, but also references the violence and fear he remembers from this period in China’s history.