Contradictions

"Li Huasheng (b. 1944) represents the first generation of artists raised and trained in the People's Republic of China. His career spans the painting of Maoist propaganda in the 1960s, a decade of secretly studying forbidden traditional styles during the Cultural Revolution, an overnight rise from poverty to prominence during the artistic rejuvenation of Sichuan province under Deng Xiaoping, a hellish descent into political disgrace during the anti-Western campaign of 1983-1984, and a boldly pursued political rehabilitation to become Sichuan's foremost younger artist today. All along, Li has been driven by a fearless flair for drama that is expressed not only in his remarkable paintings of the Sichuan landscape but in a lifelong passion for Sichuan-style theater. Li's career has been allied with that of his foremost mentor, Chen Zizhuang (1913-1976). Chen, a personal bodyguard and cultural adviser to Sichuan's last warlord governor, was ostracized by the Communist arts administration after 1949 and died in obscurity, but posthumously became a centerpiece of the revival of traditional arts in Sichuan under the influence of Deng Xiaoping." "Since the advent of socialism in China, no