Invasion

Images of a kneeling Mao and the connotations arising from them automatically steer our interpretations of Invasion. Issues of politics are explicit in the work, while its billboardesque format references the obtrusiveness of advertising, whose effect, colloquially referred to as “brainwashing,” is similar to the manipulative force that all ideologies exert. The title “invasion” refers to the recent history of China and to modern methods for disseminating imagery.

Multiple repetition of an image usually strips it of meaning, yet the multitude of golden Maos in a meditative pose that the Great Helmsman could only assume in one’s imagination is more redolent of totalitarian popularisation and objectification that of mindless replication. The elements of Chinese culture appearing in the piece – the colour yellow attributed to the emperor in early China, or the placement of the figures reminiscent of the Terracotta Army – acquire perverse significance. Kijewski & Kocur address the issue of pop culture’s fascination with icons such as Mao. The Mao-mania that gripped China had greater economic implications than ideological ones. It stimulated the production of souvenirs that transformed the personification of terror into a visually attractive commodity. T-shirts and pins featuring Mao’s likeness seem to neutralise the evil he dispensed, and, being products of pop culture, they take on the status of harmless gadgets. Detaching Mao’s image from his deeds goes back a long way. We need not look further than the infatuation of Western European intellectuals with Maoist Communism. Mao’s disciples did not recognise the regime’s crimes as they were preoccupied with the ideas of equality and social justice promulgated by Chinese

propaganda.

Adapting a style reminiscent of advertising, Kijewski & Kocur’s work is a gesture of opposition to mindless use of imagery. The artists once pointed out that their large format prints are something “completely […] different from large format advertisements. We transform billboards into almost painting-like presentations.” This declaration is relevant to interpreting the work from both formal and symbolic perspectives.

Izabela Kopania