Perhaps like energy, culture cannot be destroyed, only its form changed. So an exhibition of the transformed artistic culture – in the guise of Chinese propaganda posters – is a welcome crumb leftover from the famines and disasters of China's Cultural Revolution.
The Richard Goodall Gallery in Manchester is holding an exhibition of original Chinese propaganda posters from 1969 – 1979. One poster with the headline 'firmly support agriculture!' shows a farm worker on a tractor holding the Little Red Book high. Another shows Mao with his people in a shipyard and another, boys and girls with guns calling the proletariat to arms. Interesting and even desirable as they are, for aficionados of propaganda posters, they lack the graphical sophistication of the Russian propaganda maestros.
