by Mikael Larsson

To get to the propaganda and Poster museum you first have to walk down an ally,

turn a corner and head down an elevator into a seemingly normal

Shanghaines apartment building.

No signs lead the way to the collection of Chinese propaganda posters

found down below.

Although not illegal, the damp basement and the eclectic collection of

posters hung behind mostly

plastic covers only add to the feel of having snuck in on something

you ware not supposed to see,

at least on something that the government wants to keep hidden. It's

probably good this is not the case.

Being fortunate enough to meet the owner and director Mr. Yang Pei

Ming, who have collected over five thousand posters some for

sale and many on view in his museum, brings more insight into why the

museum is laid out the way it is.

None of the plaques are in Chinese, and according to him the National

History Museum in Beijing have not yet opened up

its Mao communist era wing. It seems the interest in this period of

Chinese art is saved by only a handful few,

except for Pei Ming, mostly foreign. I would gladly recommend anyone

visiting Shanghai to go see this exhibit

as it is truly one of a kind and a really great experience and a

fantastic way of looking into the reemerging of Chinese art during

the cultural revolution.

And if Yang Pei Ming have bet his cards right, and from seeing the

changing climate in China, very likely.

We might soon see his collection spread out among Chinas great museum

and collectors,

something I think this great salesman might have foreseen all along.