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| UVU displays art from Chinese Cultural Revolution - ksl.com Posted: 11 Oct 2010 09:07 PM PDT  UVU displays art from Chinese Cultural Revolution October 11th, 2010 @ 10:10pm By Carole Mikita OREM -- A remarkable exhibit at Utah Valley University showcases works created during China's Cultural Revolution. It was a period in which artists were threatened with arrest, even death. How the artwork survived massive government crackdowns during the 1960s in China remains a mystery. Many paintings, watercolors and wood carving prints were hidden for decades. "During those times like the Cultural Revolution ... if you were a senior artist or an academic or an intellectual, you were being beaten, tortured and sent to labor camps. It's amazing what they did to even preserve their art." - Dodge Billingsley, photojournalist Dodge Billingsley, a war correspondent and award-winning photojournalist became an art collector during his world travels. In some cases, he spent days trying to talk the Chinese artists into letting him buy their art. "During those times like the Cultural Revolution, when most artists ... if you were a senior artist or an academic or an intellectual, you were being beaten, tortured and sent to labor camps. It's amazing what they did to even preserve their art," Billingsley says. "I've heard estimates that 80 percent of the art in China was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution," he continued. "I don't know how they quantify that, but we hear that estimate, that figure thrown out when I'm in China. Some of these artists, like Jin Zhilin, who are now in their 80s, they broke open their floor boards; they talk about stuffing their paintings in there, nailing it down, going back to their home 14 years later. His survived, a lot of them lost all their art." Some of those pieces that survived are now on exhibit at Utah Valley University's Woodbury Art Museum. The works date from 1958 to 1985, when the artists captured the rise of Mao Zedong and his policies. The Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976, was a period of widespread persecution and destruction of the culture. Song Ruxin, a Chinese artist who accompanied his works to Utah, says he remembers as a child believing he had a gift. Despite receiving international recognition now, he says he only ever painted what he saw: workers, small towns, farms. But Ruxin wasn't always safe. Through a translator, he shared the fear he felt. "If I have something, make some mistake, not something the government wants, maybe they will make some punishment. I feared when one leader chose to say something about me." - Song Ruxin, artist "If I have something, make some mistake, not something the government wants, maybe they will make some punishment," Ruxin said. "I feared when one leader chose to say something about me, but I was apparently not important enough then." Billingsley says it was literally painful for these artists to express themselves if they went contrary to party politics -- and for a while, party politics changed constantly. Even creating art officials wanted was challenging. The artists had to be so careful with their images of Mao, for fear of being arrested and sent to prison, that many of them used government-approved photographs, pasting them onto their artwork. Called the "Red Period" in China, art of the Cultural Revolution has now become accepted, even popular. "Actually, it's kind of hot right now to collect red art in China," Billingsley says. "Jin sold a piece last year for $2 million to a Chinese collector." For those who will visit to the exhibit, Billingsley hopes visitors can grasp some of the history. "You can, through the images and the little stories that are attached to each image, get an idea of what the politics were and what life was like in China," he says. To many Chinese today, Billingsley says the Cultural Revolution remains a painful part of that nation's modern history, but a part of history beautifully preserved by those who survived to capture it. Art Through the Cultural Revolution will remain at the Woodbury Art Museum, which is located inside University Mall, through Dec. 17. CLICK HERE for more information. E-mail: cmikita@ksl.com  This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Cemetery a constant reminder of China's Cultural Revolution - Washington Post Posted: 10 Oct 2010 12:44 AM PDT CHONGQING, CHINA - At a lakeside park, tucked in the shadows between trees and bushes, is a cemetery with a story many in China would like to forget. Hidden behind high walls and locked iron gates are tombs for Red Guards killed during the dark days of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, a ruthless attempt to reinforce Communist Party ideology. As with everything to do with Mao, the graveyard occupies an uneasy space in Chinese history. When China's top leaders observed the 61st anniversary of the founding of Communist China recently with a flower-laying ceremony at the Monument to the People's Heroes in Beijing, they did so quietly, without the speeches extolling Mao that once marked all such events. It was another sign that the country is caught between competing narratives about the legacy of the Communist Party patriarch. His revolutionary triumphs are inscribed on monuments across the country, and his face is stamped on paper currency. A portrait of the "Great Leader" dominates the gates of the Forbidden City, where emperors once lived, and his mausoleum is across the street in Tiananmen Square. On the other hand, few Chinese are eager to discuss the havoc and death that came with Mao's ideological adventures. Although the Chinese government in 1981 admitted Mao's role in the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution - which together with his earlier Great Leap Forward initiative led to millions of deaths - it also stated that the Chinese should continue to uphold "Mao Zedong thought." The underlying message then, as now: Officials have no interest in judging too closely the man who in large part built the Chinese Communist Party. About 900 miles southwest of the capital, though, the Chongqing cemetery is a reminder of what happened in the years that politicians prefer to leave blank. The 130 or so tombstones - many marking multiple burials - evoke guilt and sorrow for those who survived, according to ordinary Chinese milling around the paths near the graveyard. "Those people should not have died, but they had too much belief in Old Man Mao," said Li Xingxiu, 68, her eyes filled with sadness. "Me, personally, I also believed him too much. . . . That time made a mess of peoples' lives." In 1967 and 1968, fighting between Red Guard factions - youth groups at the head of Mao's efforts to wipe out "counterrevolutionary" elements - in the city was particularly violent as militants seized tanks and flamethrowers from munitions factories. In Chongqing, many still remember the chaos. "Was I here at the time? I joined the Red Guards. I was on the side of the revolution - I was for Chairman Mao," said a retired factory worker. Pushed for detail, he looked nervous. "Back then, it was correct. Everyone had to follow Mao," said the man, who didn't want his name published. State media announced this year that the Chongqing graveyard had become the first Cultural Revolution site in China to be preserved under government order. But the cemetery will be closed to the public for most of the year. "It has historical value, but we should wait for a while before opening it, until the people who participated in that event [the Cultural Revolution] have passed away," said Pu Yongjian, a professor of tourism management at Chongqing University. "Many years from now, another generation will be able to view this period of history fairly." Because students in China are given a sanitized account of Mao's life and unauthorized texts are blocked, it remains unclear to what extent future generations will be able to consider the subject. "For young people, we have a general idea about it," said Xiao Zhiqiang, a 35-year-old factory manager in Chongqing. And what do the legacies of Mao and the Cultural Revolution mean for today's China? "I have no idea," Xiao said. Sitting with a group of friends at the park, Xie Xueru, a former cadre in the local government's agricultural department, said he doesn't like the cemetery. "I don't think it's necessary for this graveyard to be here. It reminds us of the Cultural Revolution," Xie said. He considered the matter for another moment before speaking again. "They died innocently and should not be blamed," said Xie, 65. "But they deserved to die. They put too much trust in a 'holy person.' " Having said as much, Xie looked around and seemed unsure of what to say next. Then it came: "That 'holy person' was Mao Zedong." - McClatchy This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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