clipped from: www.pingmag.jp   

Pop and Propaganda – Chinese posters and Wang Guangyi

Pop and Propaganda – Chinese posters and Wang Guangyi
So what’s left of Chairman Mao’s communist legacy in a country that is hurtling into a new capitalist age? How is this being reflected in contemporary Chinese art and design? These questions have been on my mind since going to see the exhibition of Chinese propaganda posters at Gallery TOM in Shibuya. The images, made between the late 1950s to the 1980s, are so arresting, so over the top: people waving guns and flags in the air, striding around, saluting, chests thrust out – this is some serious nation-building being depicted!