Exhibition

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

31.1.-28.2.2001 Universitätsmuseum Heidelberg

The Main Lecture Zhu ke Dan Boqin and Chen Wenguang 1975, Beijing A worker-teacher lectures red-scarved children on the Taiping uprising. Apparently in a museum, the exhibit behind the class centers on a huge picture of Hong Xiuquan, the charismatic religious figure who led the Taipings and believed himself to be the son of God and the younger brother of Jesus Christ. The Taiping uprising (1850-64) was upheld by the Communists as an example of a mass movement against a corrupt government, the Qing. Political rhetoric emphasized the similarities between the Taiping uprising and the Communist Revolution, as modern mass political movements.