Red-Color News Soldier: Li Zhensheng

September 18–October 29, 2006
Public Reception: October 12, 6–9 p.m.

The Cultural Revolution in China (1966–76) remains one of the most complicated political movements of the twentieth century. Almost no visual documentation of the period exists; that which does is influenced by government control over media, arts, and cultural institutions. Li Zhensheng (b. 1940), a photojournalist living in the northern Chinese province of Heilongjiang during the revolution, managed, at great personal risk, to hide and preserve more than 30,000 negatives during the ten-year period. He made images as a party-approved photographer for the Heilongjiang Daily. This body of work is the only known existing photographic documentation of the Cultural Revolution.




Top party officials are denounced during an afternoon-long rally in Red Guard Square: Wang Yilun (left) is accused of being a "black gang element." Harbin, August 29, 1966.

Photograph © Li Zhensheng (Contact Press Images) from the book Red-Color News Soldier (Phaidon, 2003). All rights reserved.


For more information on the exhibition:

www.red-colornewssoldier.com





banner image:

Partial view of the Lyndhurst Gallery, one of four exhibition spaces at CDS. Photograph by Christoper Sims.


top