The production brigade's reading room

大队图书室
Dadui tushushi
Zhao Kunhan - The production brigade's reading room
1975, January
Shanghai renmin chubanshe (上海人民出版社)
53x77 cm.
BG E12/124

During the Cultural Revolution, propaganda does its utmost to portray China as an agrarian Utopia, although the images clearly show that progress has arrived in the rural areas, as can be seen from, a.o., the radio receiver on the wall. This poster was designed by one of the peasant painters from Huxian, Shaanxi Province. The Huxian painters' highly political paintings provided idyllic slices of the good life in the rural areas, and were peopled with happy and enthusiastic peasants engaged in agriculture, political meetings and study sessions.

This is a reworked version of a poster published in September 1974. How can an image can be changed and/or altered to suit changing political demands, or changes in the message that needs to be propagated? Comparing these two posters is almost like a game of 'spot-the-ten-differences'!

Search this site

Share this page