Oh boy. Lotta pain in China. Lotta pain.
Fang Lijun is one of the best-known contemporary Chinese painters. Soul as psyche, that's what Fang paints. We've all had dreams of drowning. Those nightscapes are psychic soul-speak for being overwhelmed, for being powerless. They can be terrifying.
This is Fang's interpretation of Mao's famous swim in the Yangtze River in 1966, which was Mao's signal to the country that, at 73 years old, he was still vigorous enough to re-take control. He was, and that swim was the beginning of China's descent into the terror of the Cultural Revolution. Fang's figure in the water looks like a corpse rather than a swimmer.
