German Version

Exhibition

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

31.1.-28.2.2001 Universitätsmuseum Heidelberg

Untitled (Cartoon of the Gang of Four)

Unknow artist
c. 1976, unknown place
A handpainted poster illustrates popular participation in the campaign against the Gang of Four. Here, depicted mockingly as a film crew, the Gang of Four launches missiles bearing the slogans “Usurp the Party” and “Seize Power.” The image of the filmmaker may connote alliance with the corrupt, bourgeois West and symbolize the self-centered interests of the Gang of Four. Individual handpainted posters like this one were common during the Cultural Revolution. In 1966, a homemade big-character poster hung up at Beijing University was discovered by Mao and broadcast to the nation. Some scholars take that incident to mark the beginning of the mass movement of the Cultural Revolution.
Yiman Liu
Last modified: Sun Jun 24 11:02:42 CEST 2001