Under the cover of darkness and armed with a can of spray paint, Zhang Dali pedals his bicycle around the quiet Beijing streets with the intention of giving the city a new face -- sometimes two or three.
For the last five years, this photographer, performance artist and painter has left his unique mark on the walls around Beijing. It is his mission to highlight the systematic demolition of the capital's old city and, by default, put to the test the words of China's most famous cadre.
"There is no such thing as art for art's sake," according to Chairman Mao Zedong. "Proletarian literature and art are, . . . as Lenin said, cogs and wheels in the whole revolutionary machine."
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