%0 Journal Article
%T History Writ Large: Big-character Posters, Red Logorrhoea and the Art of Words
%A Geremie R. Barm¨¦
%J PORTAL : Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies
%D 2013
%I 
%X The starting point of this paper is the 1986 artwork of the then Xiamen-based artist Wu Shanzhuan, called ¡®Red Humor¡¯, which reworked references to big-character posters (dazi bao ´ó×Ö±¨) and other Mao-era forms of political discourse, recalling the Cultural Revolution. It explains how Wu¡¯s installation offered a provocative microcosm of the overwhelming mood engendered by a logocentric movement to ¡®paint the nation red¡¯ with word-images during the years 1966-1967. This discussion of the hyper-real use of the dazi bao during China¡¯s Cultural Revolution era (c.1964-1978) allows us to probe into ¡®the legacies of the word made image¡¯ in modern China. The paper argues that, since the 1980s, Wu Shanzhuan has had many emulators and ¡®avant-garde successors¡¯, since we have seen multiple examples of parodic deconstructions of the cultural authority of the Chinese character (zi) in recent decades.
%U http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/portal/article/view/2645