Art is often subversive. Hitler knew it. Stalin knew it. And Mao Zedong knew it. Dictators regard ideas expressed by art for art’s sake as a threat. They use art as propaganda, a tool to glorify the state. They prevent artists who do not hew to the party line from exhibiting their work in public. Some of the groundbreaking Chinese artists who made the works currently on view at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), Salem, still aren’t allowed to show in their own country.
Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection “is ultimately a way of accessing China,” says Uli Sigg, the Swiss businessman who participated in China’s first joint venture with the West and later served as Switzerland’s ambassador to China and North Korea.
