Mao Tse-Tung has been called many things: revolutionary, visionary, psychopath, demagogue, etc. etc. Rarely, however, is Mao associated with fashion, and it would seem absurd, at first, to label Mao a fashion icon. Yet it’s undeniable that the “Mao suit” has attained a kind of iconic status, signifying precisely all those conflicting characteristics long associated with Mao himself. This talk explores the migration of the “Mao suit” across a diverse range of American cultural productions, including Tseng Kwong-Chi’s self-portraits, Andy Warhol’s famous Mao paintings, and Don Delillo’s novel Mao II. In mapping out this selective cultural biography, Warren Liu‘s talk investigates how and why the “Mao suit” continues to resonate in American cultural productions, and what, if anything, the suit has come to symbolize.
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