BEIJING (Reuters) - An enraged Chinese sculptor is suing an
art professor for violation of copyright by recreating his
sculpture of a sleeping Mao Zedong in another work called
"Nightmare", a state newspaper said on Wednesday.
Wang Wenhai worked for the Revolutionary Museum in Yan'an,
in the central province of Shaanxi, the heart of the Chinese
Communist revolution, where he devoted himself to creating
thousands of sculptures of the late Chairman Mao, his
hero.
"Sleeping Chairman Mao", completed in 2002, has the Great
Helmsman wrapped in a thick cotton quilt sleeping on a brick
bed.
"Chairman Mao sleeps there like a big mountain, that is my
intention," Wang told the Beijing Times.
Sui Jianguo, professor at the China Central Academy of Fine
Arts in Beijing, had invited Wang to create the sculpture and
even helped paint it.
And then, two years later, Sui's own sculpture,
"Nightmare", featuring a bizarre dream scene with a sleeping
Mao in the middle, turned up at an exhibit in San Francisco,
the newspaper said.
Wang is claiming copyright infringement while Sui's lawyer
told the Beijing court the work is an entirely different
concept and therefore cannot be an infringement.
Wang is also upset at Mao being humiliated.
"I was so angry I fainted," the Beijing Times quoted him as
saying when he heard of "Nightmare" being exhibited in the
States.
"I said at the time, 'ah, Professor Sui, why did you not
tell me? You are committing a sin. How can you equate Chairman
Mao with the devil?'"
The full name of the sculpture in Chinese means literally
"Nightmare, a devil in your dreams".
Art involving Mao and the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution has
found a large audience in the West. Andy Warhol's 1972 iconic
"Mao" portrait sold for $17,376,000 in New York last
week.