From September 2008 till January 2009, The Asia Society organized a significant exhibition in New York, devoted to Chinese art from the first three decades of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Aside from familiarizing a Western audience with art works from a period that is usually associated with propaganda rather than with creative work, the exhibition's organizers also wanted to show the formative influence of revolutionary art on China's present leading artists, such as Xu Bing (pp. viii, 106–117), and (multi-media) projects (The Long March Project, pp. 200–211). This fine book was published to accompany the eponymous exhibition and to provide further background to the works on display.
One of the ways in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) defined itself both to the people and the outside world was through art. After 1949, art was employed to give concrete expression to the many different abstract policies and the many grandiose visions of the future that the Party proposed and entertained over the years. Established artists from many disciplines were co-opted. Some had a commercial background, having worked for advertising agencies or commercial publishers. Other artists had joined the army or revolutionary movement and had been trained in the Army, or had gained prominence during the Yan'an period (1935–1946). They were well-versed in the political dimensions that their works now had to feature. The most important demand was that art and artists had to serve politics, as formulated in Mao Zedong's “Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art” (1942).
The “Talks” served as the basic literary and art policy and enabled the CCP, as both patron and educator, to control the arts. Officially recognized artists were those who were organized in art academies, art publishing houses, museums, associations, etc., organizations which for all intents and purposes functioned as (state) employers. The state thus was guaranteed absolute control: if artists failed to heed the directives coming from above, or failed to apply self-censorship so as to make their works comply with these directives, they faced ostracism and their livelihood would be at stake.
These preconditions gave rise to an art form with Chinese characteristics that closely followed political dictates and was politicized to the extreme. As Ralph Croizier demonstrates in his contribution (pp. 56–73), even artists working in traditional modes of expression such as Chinese ink painting were forced to modernize their work, if not in style then at least in contents. New artistic styles were prescribed, the most important being Soviet socialist realism; the bright colours and the happy and prosperous atmosphere that radiated from socialist realist works were seen as a continuation of the essential features of the traditional Chinese New Year prints, beloved by the peasantry. By the end of the 1950s, artists were to use revolutionary romanticism and revolutionary realism instead, to reflect the hopes and urgency of the Great Leap Forward campaign. Although the political situation seemed to become less tense in the early 1960s, the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) in fact would be the climax of direct political interference with art. This tumultuous era is introduced succinctly by Roderick MacFarquhar (pp. 40–55).
The high tide of Maoism in the Cultural Revolution did not mean the end of all art, on the contrary. Art was turned into propaganda to support the political movement, as Shen Kuiyi describes in his chapter on propaganda posters (pp. 148–163). Unofficial artists, i.e. those not employed in the state system, were lionized as true creators, as can be seen from the numerous Red Guard art exhibitions featuring “amateur” works, organized from 1967 onward (Wang Mingxian, pp. 187–199). Moreover, painting Mao became an art in itself, regulated by prescriptions to render him “red, bright and shining,” as Yan Shanchun details (pp. 90–101). And in the midst of this highly politicized atmosphere, a group of artists managed to engage in the creating of “themeless,” or a-political art and to organize underground exhibitions; they are known as the No Name Group and, although reclusive, remain active to the present day (Gao Minglu, pp. 178–185).
The book misses a wonderful opportunity to enlighten us further about the conditions Chinese official artists had to work under. Zheng Shengtian's interview with Liu Chunhua, creator of the iconic oil painting “Chairman Mao goes to Anyuan” (pp. 119–131), and the reminiscences of Shen Jiawei pertaining to the design and execution of his masterpiece “Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland” (pp. 132–147) present us with a peek behind the scenes. But these chapters raise more questions than answers about the relative freedom these artists seemed to enjoy, even in the midst of political turmoil and repression; and about the system of patronage that continued to exist between political leaders and artists, as it had in pre-modern China, to mention just a few topics.
Nonetheless, the varied and rich contents of this book, including relevant historical documents (pp. 213–227), as well as the high-quality reproductions of the art works, some better known and others from private collections, make this publication one that will remain essential for a long time to come.
