Illustration:
ill. 5.27 c (set: 5.27)
Author:
Wang Xingwei (1969 -) 王兴伟
Date:
1996
Genre:
oil painting
Material:
scan, paper, colour; original source: oil on canvas, 200 x 180 cm
Source:
Wang Xingwei, Blind, 1996 (DACHS 2009 Wang Xingwei Going to Anyuan), Heidelberg catalogue entry
Courtesy:
Wang Xingwei, Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne
Keywords:
sunrise, Red is the East, sun, mountains, umbrella, blindfolded, Cui Jian, Zhu Wei, China Avant-Garde

Wang Xingwei: Blind (Wang Xingwei: Mang 王兴伟: 盲)

In two other images of the series, the young man is seen, as in the Anyuan parody, on the top of a mountain ridge. One, in the image seen here, is in a seemingly hopeless situation, a dead end at the peak of the mountain, with a dog already turning back onto the one and only path down the hill where they have come up (ill. 5.27c, Blind 盲 1996). The young man, on the other hand, with his hands in determined fists and his (plastic) umbrella pointing forward, is marching on, going forward (into the air and thus, his death?). He is blind, as the title of the painting suggests, and this fact, in combination with Maoist rhetoric where “going forward” 往前进 is always considered the one and only direction one would and should take, makes for a very ambiguous message. This is even more true as an extremely kitschy sunrise (never innocent in China, to be sure, since that famous song “Red is The East”) is seen in the background. What would be the purpose of this young man’s going forward into his death? His would not be a heroic act but one of sheer waste. Does this throw a light on some of the other deaths caused by forcefully “going forward,” blindly (if not blindfolded in red, as with Cui Jian and Zhu Wei, in ill. 5.26, but the message appears to be the same) and blinded?