Illustration:
ill. 5.31 b (set: 5.31)
Author:
Gerhard Richter (1932-) 格哈德•里希特
Date:
1968
Genre:
art original, collotype
Material:
internet file, black-and-white; original source: collotype on white lightweight cardboard, 83.9 cm x 59.3 cm.
Source:
Mao, 1968 by Gerhard Richter, (DACHS 2009 Mao by Gerhard Richter), Heidelberg catalogue entry
Courtesy:
Gerhard Richter 2012
Keywords:
Mao Portrait, Western reception, defacing, Mao past, Mao present

Mao, 1968 by Gerhard Richter (Gerhard Richter: Mao 格哈德•里希特: 毛)

Yan Peiming's image (ill. 5.31a) reminds a European audience of a 1968 counterpart seen here by Gerhard Richter (1932-) who depicts Mao through a haze which equally disfigures, better, transfigures him. Both his and Yan Peiming’s image point to the complicated relation between our sensual perception of reality—which is always a perception limited—and reality itself (it is “not like that”). The “defacing,” almost abstract manner in which the face is designed in both cases makes it into a strong—if ambiguous—statement about Mao past and present.