Press Release

Beaugeste Gallery is pleased to invite you to the opening of MARC RIBOUD’s HUNDRED FLOWERS – Saturday 13th of July from 3pm to 8pm. There will be 40 gelatin silver prints of the unpublished or seldom seen images of China in 1957, including some surprising discoveries.

The Hundred Flowers campaign was launched in February 1957 based on the famous expression of Chairman Mao: “The policy of letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend is designed to promote the flourishing of the arts and the progress of science”. Marc Riboud happened to be the right man, at the right place, at the right time. The exhibition attempts to show through a selection of 40 prints, most of them seldom seen, unpublished and never exhibited before, among the tens of thousands of negatives of Marc shot during his 4-month stay in China, the amazing yet short-lived blooming of arts and folk culture during a window of relaxation. Those images of China of 1957 would become among the most significant artistic achievements of Marc Riboud and a valuable historical document of pre-Great Leap Forward, pre-Cultural Revolution China.

Young pioneers and future Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution, their wooden rifles will soon be traded for the real ones. Shenyang 1965
文化大革命中的少年先锋队与未来的红卫兵，他们手中的木枪很快就会换成真枪。沈阳 1965

Three little girls in a chilly street. Beijing 1957
寒街上的三个小女孩。北京 1957

This dock laborer dashing towards the right, in the opposite direction of the worker, the peasant and the soldier on the poster who are marching leftwards under Chairman Mao’s leadership.Shanghai 1965
这位码头工人正在向右奔跑，方向与招贴画上毛主席领导下向左前进的工农兵相反。上海 1965