Sheep magazine Archive 2: issues 10-17

‘It is Right to Rebel’ song and dance Photograph: Li Zhensheng
REVIEW
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
CHINESE
RESOLUTION
RED-COLOR NEWS SOLDIER
a photobook by
Li Zhensheng
Published by
Phaidon Press : 2003
As an introduction
and review to this book
I have re-keyed The Preface
& an exerpt
‘Red-Color New Soldier’ is the literal
translation of the four Chineses characters
printed on the armband first given to Li
Zhensheng and his rebel group in Beijing
at the end of 1966, eight months after the
launch of the Great Proleterian Cultural
Revolution. There are other, more fluent
translations, but none retains the musicality
of the four character words brought together.
For a long time in the Western world, Mao
Zedong and the Cultural Revolution were
perceived with amazement and fascination;
only very rarely with horror. In the late 1960s
and early 1970s, rioting students around the
world were inspired by the fingure-pointing,
slogan-shouting style of the Red Guards, and
andy Warhol in New York was producing
his renowned silk-screen paintings of Mao,
the ‘Great Helmsman’. Even today, all the
chaos of that period can seem somewhat
romantic and idealistic in comparison with
the contemporary Chinese society we see
and hear about.
55
MAY DAY 2016