About the artwork
The art of Ren Si Hong can be classified as Political Pop - he presents the great leader Mao in a humorous, comical manner far removed from the sever portraits we usually see. Positioning Mao in aerobic stances, he appears to carry out the exercises with ease. However, there is a deeper meaning to his work. The repetition of exercise evokes not only the pleasure of physical exertion, but also refers to the exhausting labor carried out during the Cultural Revolution.
About the artist
Ren Sihong (born in 1967) graduated from the Fine Art Department of Hebei Normal College in 1991. From 1991 to 1993, he studied in the Teaching Assistant Program for the Oil Painting Class in Central Academy of Fine Arts. In 1993, his solo exhibition was held in the Central Academy's gallery. He now works as a professional painter. Ren's work can be classified as Political Pop, in which the great leader is presented in such a lighthearted and humorous way that the distance between the untouchable, glorified giant and our realistic experience vanishes. In the sculpture ensemble, Mao leads the children of the consumer society in carrying out the broadcast exercise. He turns the uniformity of the exercise movement into free and idle self-entertaining behavior which brings a post-ideological linguistic feature to politics and sports.