Exhibition

Picturing Power:
Art and Propaganda in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

31.1.-28.2.2001 Universitätsmuseum Heidelberg

Chairman Mao is our Heart’s Red Sun Mao Zhuxi shi women xinzhong hong taiyang Hu Zhenyu 1966, Shanghai Here, a worker in brown holds up Mao’s book, while people representing various countries clasp the book to their hearts in the background. Especially in the early phase of the Cultural Revolution, many posters took part in the deification of Chairman Mao. Mao used ritual, art, and the mass media to communicate with the people, circumventing bureaucracy to establish a direct relationship between himself and the masses. Political meetings, group and individual study of Mao’s works, and various art forms (including posters) worked together to establish Mao’s central place in the people’s lives. As the poster shows, at the center of the cult of Mao was a cult of Mao’s Little Red Book. Mao’s image also came to be deified, especially after the famous 1967 work Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan. Note the use of pinyin romanization.