Propaganda on Show

From the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the 1920s, visual propaganda played a very important role in its communication strategy. Once the People's Republic of China (PRC) was established in 1949, propaganda art was increasingly seen as the most useful means to disseminate policies, ideas of behaviour and ways of thought to a population who included a large number of illiterates.
Chinese propaganda art made use of Socialist Realism to show 'life as it ought to be.' Through complete control of both artists and the publishing sector, the CCP was able to force its interpretation of reality and aesthetics on the population. Propaganda art was widely available and thus penetrated to the lowest form of social organization: it adorned walls in many a dwelling and dormitory. By entering the realm of the family, it contributed to the socialization processes already taking place there.

Abstract images
When the CCP embarked on its modernization and reform programme in the 1980s, this had enormous consequences for propaganda art. The domination of politics over everyday life receded. Socialist Realism lost its position as the dominant mode of expression in art and the time was now ripe for experimentation with alternative modes of creation. The consequence is that propaganda has become less heroic and militant, and more impressionistic. Design and representational techniques borrowed from Western advertising have been frequently employed. Abstract images have replaced the realistic art forms.
These developments have led to the disappearance of visual propaganda from the streets and State bookstores, to be replaced by commercial advertising. Although propaganda art has attempted to cater more than ever to popular tastes, it has lost contact with the population. By consciously avoiding political or moralizing content in their works, artists, who were no longer employed by the State, have provided the people with visual materials that they considered more meaningful.

Science-fiction themes
Those posters which have continued to be produced in ever decreasing numbers in the 1980s and 1990s are a far cry from the propaganda of the previous decades. Cultural Revolution propaganda usually exhorted peasants and workers to give their utmost. People were always seen to be engaged, as a group, in some meaningful activity. Apart from labour scenes, these activities could include socialist competitive sports meets, communal newspaper reading, or engaging in some sort of community activity. In the reform era, with political rituals and study on the decline, propaganda posters have started to pay attention to the promotion of wholesome, individual spare-time activities. To make the population more familiar with the political and economic changes, the inspiration for powerful images to portray these changes had to be sought outside China. Such images include space ships, mono-rails and other representations inspired by science-fiction. Spacecraft in particular seem destined to have modernizing qualities ascribed to them, while the frequent portrayal of construction cranes and high-rise buildings is a clear reference to the improving rural and urban living conditions.
For propaganda to be effective, it must reflect reality, even in a society that has been changing as fundamentally as the Chinese in the 1980s. But the posters have been steadily losing credibility and appeal. With television ownership increasing dramatically, and non-politicized art widely available, the people considered them old-fashioned relics of another era. This emerged more sharply after the Tian'anmen Incident of 1989, when the leadership introduced propaganda posters in an attempt to educate the people once again. Obedience and other qualities that no longer corresponded to the reality were stressed; in a society that increasingly valued assertiveness, the people had nothing to gain from the stock examples of self-effacing self-sacrifice which were used.

It is possible to hire this exhibition. For more information, please contact
Ausstellungsbüro Fahrenberg
Herr Fahrenberg
Ritterplan 3
D - 37073 Göttingen
Germany
Tel.: +49-551 43 390
Fax.: +49-551 59 175