Visualizing biopower, discipline and the female body in mid-twentieth century China

This article has two parts: the first discusses whether Foucault’s theories of ‘biopower’ and ‘discipline’ constitute an appropriate method for analysing art – specifically articulating the relationship between art, politics and power – in the context of Chinese Communism. The second section of the article uses these concepts to analyse a public discourse of visual imagery produced in the PRC from approximately the 1940s to the early 1980s that represent the female body. The visual culture artefacts considered in this framework include selected propaganda posters, mostly drawn from the collection of the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Center, and photographs by Li Zhensheng, reproduced in his book Red Colour News Soldier (Li 2003).