Signs of the times

>> The Centre de design de l'UQÀM examines 80 years of Chinese poster art

by MARK SLUTSKY

There's something fascinating about posters from another country. Mass-produced, up one day and pasted over the next, they afford perhaps the most candid glimpse into the day-to-day fixations of a culture. Last year the MAI provided a retrospective of some 30 years of Dutch posters; now the Centre de design de l'UQÀM's exhibition L'Affiche chinoise, 1921-2001 offers a look at several very different eras in recent Chinese

history.

The exhibit is divided into three sections: works pre-dating the Cultural Revolution; propaganda works produced afterwards; and more recent examples of Chinese graphic art. It's fascinating to see the early works, which are similar in many ways to Western advertisements of the period. Poster advertisements flourished after World War I, with China's economic expansion making many more commercial products from home and abroad commonly available. With some modifications, a 1935 poster by Xie Zhiguang advertising "The Rat" brand cigarettes depicting a dainty woman smoker wouldn't be all that different from an American ad of the period.

Come Mao and the deposition of Chiang Kai-Shek, however, the focus of Chinese poster art diverged wildly from its Western contemporaries and turned to the propagandistic. Strongly reminiscent of (and likely influenced by) the Soviet Socialist Realism of the time, the posters depict hearty workers, men and women alike, doing their bit for their Republic--agriculturally, industrially or otherwise. Communist art of this period (after the sad quashing of the brilliant early Soviet avant-garde) depicts life not as it is, but as it ought to be. It's naively idealistic, and with its over-sized, dramatic, almost superhero-like figures, quite fascinating. For decades this art was ubiquitous in China. One poster, by Zhang Ruji and Wang Jiao, urges the viewer to "carry out the popular war against Lin Biao [an official who plotted unsuccessful coup against Mao] and Confucius," and to "restore humanism and politeness." It's from 1974.

More recently though, the strict standards of Chinese graphic art have loosened, with young artists taking cues from design trends around the world. The works are more experimental, more abstract than the rigid formalism characteristic of decades of Socialist Realism. Forty more contemporary works are on display at the exhibit, which also contains 30 posters from each earlier period. L'affiche chinois is an admirable exhibit, and its interest reaches far beyond social science; these are works of art, colourful and beautiful, made so much more interesting by the unique cultural upheaval behind them.

L'affiche chinoise, 1921-2001 runs at the Centre de design de l'UQÀM until April 8