Illustration:
ill. 5.71 (set: 5.70)
Date:
1977
Genre:
poster, propaganda poster
Material:
internetfile, colour; original source: poster, colour
Source:
Propaganda Poster Hold High the Great Banner of Chairman Mao and Carry on Till the End the Continuous Revolution under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, 1977 (http://chineseposters.net), Heidelberg catalogue entry
Courtesy:
IISH Stefan R. Landsberger Collection
Inscription:
高举毛主席的伟大旗帜把无产阶级专政下的继续革命进行到底
Keywords:
Mao Zedong, Tian'anmen Square, pine, God, Mao memories, Mao Cult, Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, Mausoleum, Mao Suit
Hold high the Great Banner of Chairman Mao and carry on till the end the Continuous Revolution under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (Gaoju Mao Zhuxi de weida qizhi ba wuchanjieji zhuanzheng xia de jixu geming jinxing daodi 高举毛主席的伟大旗帜把无产阶级专政下的继续革命进行到底)
Reproduction and repetition were important hallmarks of Cultural Revolution Culture. They helped confirm the godlike qualities of MaoArt. Pre-and post-Cultural Revolution MaoArt, on the other hand, still practices and makes use of the same mechanisms and motifs of reproduction and repetition, but here repetition is not necessarily affirmative. It can be subversive, too. Now, repetition and reproduction serve the purpose not of redundantly multiplying one and the same but of diversifying several possible meanings and interpretations: Mao is associated with holiness, if not religious frenzy: it is also questioned time and again whether he still is a god (or ever was).
These contradictions notwithstanding, the visual evidence speaks another language: Godlike Mao lives on long after his death, still towering above everyone and everything as in this 1977 propaganda poster, where he is shown suspended above the monumental memorial hall completed in the summer of that same year: It is given the title Hold High the Great Banner of Chairman Mao and Carry on till the End the Continuous Revolution under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (高举毛主席的伟大旗帜把无产阶级专政下的继续革命进行到底).
