Art in Turmoil

A decoding of the rhetoric of China’s turbulent decade, a time of both brutal iconoclasm and radical experimentation in the arts, that offers new insights into works that have transcended their times.

This book decodes the rhetoric of China’s turbulent decade, a time of both brutal iconoclasm and radical experimentation in the arts, to offer new insights into works that have transcended their times.Forty years after China’s tumultuous Cultural Revolution, this book revisits the visual and performing arts of the period – the paintings, propaganda posters, political cartoons, sculpture, folk arts, private sketchbooks, opera, and ballet. Probing deeply, it examines what these vibrant, militant, often gaudy images meant to artists, their patrons, and their audiences at the time, and what they mean now, both in their original forms and as revolutionary icons reworked for a new market-oriented age. Chapters by scholars of Chinese history and art and by artists whose careers were shaped by the Cultural Revolution offer new insights into works that have transcended their times.