Heimo Wallner

Mao Tse Tung, Ausgewählte Werke, Band II, 35mm, colour, music: Martin Zrost, 2001

In the late 80ies I got an edition of “Mao Tse Tungs Selected Works” in 5 volumes (printed in 1968 in Beijing in German). And ever since then they are standing in my book shelf challenging me…

2 volumes I have transformed in the meantime. Volume I is a drawing book and volume II is an animation movie - 3 more are waiting. It is a project that stretches over a long period of time.

In a way it is my struggle to make sense of something so clearly written, so easily understood, so linear, so horrifyingly consequential! I consider myself very much as a political being and clearly a political being of the left and it is astounding to me how the human animal continously manages to screw up in the biggest possible ways (often with the best intentions). I don’t think that my work is political first and foremost - it is more a visceral response to what I encounter, using stupidity (or to tone it down a bit: the disability to grasp the complex chain of cause and effects) to probe the world.