Collection Spotlight: Öyvind Fahlström

This month the Bronx Museum highlights the work of Brazilian artist Öyvind Fahlström (1928 -1976). Working in a wide range of media and themes, Fahlström avoided affiliation with any art category throughout his brief albeit productive career. Equally influenced by surrealism, pop art, situationism, and even documentary filmmaking, Fahlström borrowed imagery and styles from comics and the media to create original and relevant artworks that unmask the absurdities of modern society. 

With its conflation of pop culture and politics, Mao-Hope March was conceived as one of the elements in Fahlström’s groundbreaking performance Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, which was presented at the Park Avenue Armory in 1966 as part of 9 Evenings: Theater and Engineering, organized by Billy Klüver. To produce Mao Hope March, Fahlström invited a group of his closest friends to march down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue wielding signs with the faces of Chairman Mao and US comedian Bob Hope

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.