A Review By Anna Glaze and Micki McCoy

Political Pop has been a bumper crop for contemporary Chinese art in part because its graphic qualities, extreme readability, and kitschy accessibility lend it to reception by wide audiences and international appeal. The predecessors for this movement, however, are often not considered. As Political Pop is increasingly seen as a phenomenon of the past, a look at itssources in propaganda posters helps us to further contextualize and understand the recent history of Chinese art.

Visualizing Revolution: Propaganda Posters from the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1989 at the UC Davis Nelson Gallery of Art provides a historically comprehensive survey of the genre, beginning with a poster commemorating Chairman Mao’s founding of the People’s Republic in 1953. Included in the exhibition are posters from the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and for the first time, the post-Mao era up to 1989. Many of these objects, some of which are now unique prints, have never been exhibited outside Yang Peiming’s Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Center.

The exhibition paints a visual narrative of a nation undergoing tremendous change, from early visions of an idyllic socialist society free from threats both domestic and imperialist, into the reddened landscape of the Cultural Revolution and its cycle of criticism. A running current through all of the posters is the image of a united China, whether it be working toward a common goal or criticizing a declared enemy of the state.

While most often the individual artist is in fact identified on the posters, along with the publisher, edition size, and other details, visual indication of a poster’s individual artist, if noticed, is relegated to adherence to overarching official standards. Instead of being made aware of the artist who created the poster, we first notice the general style-type: comic-inspired renderings from the early period, rough yet readable woodcuts, and most enduring of all, socialist realism.

Several of the objects are of special significance: the early posters from 1950s and early 60s, the Cultural Revolution-era woodcuts, an original gouache painting hung adjacent to its poster reproduction, a watercolor from 1989 protests, and a big character poster or "dazibao".

A right-to-left reading poster from 1951 shows a revolutionary soldier and a child pointing at a paper tiger decorated with anti-U.S. slogans. Symbolizing the surface menace and ultimate fragility of the U.S., "Look Down Upon the U.S. Because it is a Paper Tiger That Can be Defeated" demonstrates the extent to which cultural icons were appropriated to reinforce party power.

In another poster, Mao is shown in profile on a saturated red background, with a quotation – apparently Lin Biao’s – promoting his merits. In Tibetan script, it is the only non-Chinese language poster in the exhibition.

Posters created after the Cultural Revolution shift from an emphasis on revolution to a focus on modernization. A large-scale poster from 1979 depicts a woman, presumably a scientist, examining the tools of her trade. The text of the poster instructs us to “struggle hard to overcome difficulties in science.” The composition is rendered in cool pastels and is a dramatic shift away from the bold reds and yellows seen in posters from the previous decade.

Contemporary Chinese art is often seen as representing the fresh talent of a new China, and Visualizing Revolution helps us to understand more of what is at stake. It gives a taste of the depth and complexity of the history of Chinese art in the twentieth century, in all its incarnations.


Exhibition information:

Visualizing Revolution: Propaganda Posters from the People's Republic of China, 1949-1989
April 3 through May 18, 2008
Opening Reception, April 10, 6 - 8 pm
Nelson Gallery, Art Building
UC Davis
Katharine Burnett and Yang Peiming, Guest Curators


Photo: Tang Shaomu (Tang Xiaohe), Engage in Physical Exercise Even in Billowing Waves and High Winds, 1976, poster, 106 x 77 cm. Courtesy of People's Sports Publishing House.