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.

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.

About the Author
Richard King is Professor of Chinese studies at the University of Victoria, teaching Chinese literature and film, Asian popular culture, research methods, and Chinese language.

Reviews
In this national convulsion the arts played a strikingly large role, a process described with great care in Art in Turmoil. -- Robert Fulford * "A new level of art criticism," National Post, June 15, 2010 *

This is a brilliant, thorough study of art created during the disastrous decade in China's modern history. The recent flood of publications on China's contemporary art scene make this book on the immediately preceding period necessary reading because of the polar opposite forces that brought the two periods into play.... Essential.

* CHOICE *

This volume compellingly illustrates that the artistic products of the CR period were anything but "artless, sterile, without depth, without truth, and without reality" (189). Moreover, present-day artistic producers and their works, as well as society at large, continue to be influenced by them.

-- Stefan R. Landsberger, University of Amsterdam * The China Beat *

The level of scholarship throughout is high, with extensive reading in Chinese-language primary and secondary sources combined with personal experience. It is recommended reading for all students of contemporary Chinese culture and society.

-- Bonnie S. McDougall, University of Sydney, Australia * Pacific Affairs, Vol 84, No 3 *



Book Information
ISBN 9780774815437
Author Ralph Croizier
Format Paperback
Page Count 318
Imprint University of British Columbia Press
Publisher University of British Columbia Press
Weight(grams) 500g