Yue Minjun

Private Collection, Switzerland

This work is in generally very good condition overall. Framed. Not examined out of frame nor under UV light.
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The wide and abundant smiles of Yue Minjun's evocative self-portraits have become synonymous with the great success of Chinese contemporary art in recent years.  And like the best works being produced by Chinese artists today, Yue's are celebratory and pensive in equal measure; one can't be sure if his iconic toothy grins are meant to express joy or turmoil.  For certain, Yue's luscious pink figures evoke a sense of delight in the viewer, and it is difficult not to smile back in response to them. 

Yet there is always something slightly off kilter in his work, whether it be the army of mice surrounding a pair of gesturing Yue Minjun figures emerging from a manhole, as in Everywhere from 2002 (Lot 26), or in the droves of the artist's doppelgangers set adrift in a small boat, lined up on a bridge, or hurtling through the sky, as they are so often wont to do.  In a long-standing examination of the self - and, indeed, in what seems a fundamental questioning of the stability of individual personality in the first place - Yue Minjun replicates himself again and again, not only in paintings, but also in sculptures, of which Lot 28 is a prime example.  Yue presents so many versions of Yue Minjun that it becomes nearly impossible to pinpoint the artist's true nature, with hundreds of versions of the self bound to each other only by their pink skin and gaping smiles.  The rest is sheer fiction that places the image of the artist in unpredictable situations and settings, much like a serial comic in which the protagonist is repeatedly barraged by odd encounters in ever stranger worlds.  Here, Yue is the main actor and the vicissitudes of contemporary China his stage.

Perhaps one of his most powerful paintings to date, Infanta (The Princess) from 1997 is a rare example of the artist's nod to Western art history, made all the more peculiar by his having taken the pose of the young Infanta Marguerita, daughter of King Philip IV of Spain, as depicted in Spanish master Diego Velázquez's famed Las Meninas of 1656.  Among the most famous paintings in all of art history, Las Meninas portrays a scene from the Spanish royal court from the perspective of the king and queen who seem to have been sitting for the very portrait upon which Velázquez portrays himself as working.  The couple is visible in a mirror that hangs at the back of the room and above the centrally-positioned young princess in the foreground, the charming young character whose pose Yue adopts.  In the original work, Velazquez played with ideas of spatial construction and perspective to exceptional ends. Perhaps Velázquez's self-portrait inspired Yue's playful work with the source image, though Yue wished to take center stage as his own painting's charming young star.

Many artists have created their own interpretations of Velázquez's masterpiece, amongst which the best known is Picasso's extended series of 1958 in which he meditates upon the original work from seemingly all possible angles.   Several other Asian artists also took up the work in the 1990s.  Japanese artist Morimura Yasumasa, for example, inserted his own body in the position of the Infanta in two works from 1990, Daughter of Art History (Princess A) and (Princess B) (one referring not to Las Meninas itself, but to a similarly-posed, stand-alone portrait of the young princess).  Morimura quite literally recreates a portion of the scene with three-dimensional props, including a self-made dress in each image, and then poses himself behind his mock-ups to produce a photographic- and much altered- version of the original.  Japanese painter Fukuda Miran also experimented with the work, as seen in her 1992 canvas The Princess Margaret, D­õna Isabel Velasco, Dwarfs Mary Barbora and Nicholasito Pertusato with a Dog as Seen by a Waiting Maid Dô­na Mary Augustina.  Fukuda, however, skews the scene, rotating the perspective to that of the maid standing just to the right of the young princess in the original.   Las Meninas continues to prove fertile soil today, as American artist Eve Sussmann's 89 Seconds at Alcazar (2004) attests;  in her twelve-minute, high-definition film, Sussman imagines the activity just before and after the moment Velázquez captures in his painting, with actors in full costume on a set that reproduces the interior originally depicted. 

Yue Minjun's adaptation finds the artist in the role of the young princess, wearing a gray dress, and seemingly about to curtsy, as indicated by the positioning of his hands at the edges of the dress's ruffles.  The image fills nearly all of the massive two-meter-square canvas, creating a gigantic artist-cum-princess that holds powerful sway over the picture plane.  The folds and creases in the dress are handsomely depicted, lending a soft and decidedly feminine allure to the work.  The decidedly male image of Yue Minjun in this girlish frock, however, adds more than a touch of humor while eliciting a clear tension based upon race, gender and identity.  Unlike the demure Infanta, the figure of the artist seems to be belting out an operatic aria at top volume, or perhaps screaming in opposition to the gender-confused situation in which he has found himself.  Nothing is certain about this image; its allure rests on its instability.

As in all of Yue's works, the viewer is forced to question the artist's reasoning:  why in this place, in this adopted character, in this particular situation, and with that ever-present smirk?  Does Yue attempt to insert himself as a Chinese artist in the midst of the Western art historical canon, or is he simply playing the role of trickster, keeping the viewer guessing about his true intentions?  Our questions are categorically answered with the same willful, determined smile.  Like a contemporary Mona Lisa, Yue's visage has become a site of mystery upon which an unanswerable riddle constantly unfolds. 

Is Yue Minjun happy with his lot in life, or is he calling out to be rescued from it?  In this regard, Yue's impenetrable smile reflects the complex face of contemporary Chinese society; it is the stage upon which the creative energies and veiled critiques of a nation are endlessly performed, in a variety of guises, and without absolute answers.  Wherever things may be headed, Yue Minjun and his invincible army of selves are likely to stand guard at the gates of contemporary Chinese art history, smiling and smirking, well into the future.

-Eric C. Shiner