Two iconic photographs taken at the launch of the cultural
revolution (1966-76) will mark the first appearance of so-called
"red art" at an auction when they go under the hammer in Beijing
tomorrow.
The photographs are part of the emerging wave of "red art" art
about the cultural revolution and China's revolutionary wars, hot
subjects in China and around the world.
The two pictures were taken by Weng Naiqiang, a retired
photojournalist working for the Japanese edition of the
Beijing-based magazine People's China, in 1966. They have never
been published before, according to Li Xin, manager of the image
department of Beijing Huachen Auctions Co Ltd, which will sell the
two pictures during its annual autumn auction.
In one of the two pictures, red guards, dressed in green army
uniforms and brandishing copies of "Quotations from Chairman Mao
Zedong," or the "Little Red Book," shout slogans at Tian'anmen
Square.
In the other picture, Chairman Mao stands on the top of the
Tian'anmen Rostrum and waves to the sea of people gathered in the
square. The people are waving back, copies of the "Little Red Book"
in hand.
Bidding for the two pictures will start at 76,000 yuan
(US$9,500) and 120,000 yuan (US$15,000), respectively.
The photographer, now 70, was born and raised in Indonesia. He
moved to China, his ancestral homeland, in 1954. He studied in the
oil painting department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in
Beijing from 1958 to 1963 and worked for People's China from 1964
to 1990.
He recently compiled 27 of his pictures into a Cultural
Revolution Series, from which the auction committee chose the two
pictures to be sold tomorrow.
Besides these two photographs, the company is also planning to
sell a dozen pictures by other photographers who recorded the
cultural revolution.
"These pictures will be the first images the cultural revolution
to appear at a public auction," said Gan Xuejun, president of
Huachen Auctions. She added that the sale had been approved by the
central government.
Collectors both at home and abroad are drawn to the photographs'
artistic and historical value, said Li, the manager of the auction
house's image department.
"To many Chinese, they are reminders of a memory that will never
be wiped out," she said. "To foreigners, they are records of a
history that shall never be reproduced."
Besides the photos, the company will also present a series of
926 woodcarvings depicting the Red Army's Long March (1934-36) at
its contemporary art session tomorrow afternoon.
The series, entitled "Red Ribbon on the Earth," was created by
Shen Yaoyi, an art professor at Renmin University in Beijing,
between 1988 and 1993. Bidding for this series will start at 10
million yuan (US$1.25 million).
(China Daily November 22, 2006)
