I'm quite certain that Mao never wanted his image to become an icon of pop culture, especially because of the rampant commercialism associated with popular art, and the fact that his image is often used in a tongue-in-cheek manner, poking fun at corporations and at Mao himself.
But pop artists from Andy Warhol to Kozik have enjoyed using his smug visage in their works for decades, and even if Mao himself crawls out of his grave and starts chomping on brains, the flood of works featuring his image will never end. There's a nice little gallery of Mao inspired artworks at the link below, from flashy to antiquated and everything in between. The revolution lives on!
Link --via JazJaz --image credit: Romero Britto
What's disgusting is that anyone would do anything to trivialize the mass muder and destruction of lives this POS is responsible for.
Why is it you never see these "artists" attempting to turn Hitler into a pop icon?