Yue Minjun b. 1962

signed in Chinese and dated 1997

Serieuze Zaken Studioos/Rob Malasch, Amsterdam

Yue Minjin: The Lost Self, Hebei Education Press, China, 2005, pp. 146-147

Collection Edition of Chinese Oil Painter Volume of Yue Minjun, Sichuan Fine Arts Publishing House, China, 2006, pp. 88-89

Oriental Art: Master, China Today Art Museum, First half of August 2006, p. 18

Lu Peng, ed., Chinese Contemporary Artists Volumes, Series II- Yue Minjun, Sichuan Fine Arts Publishing House, 2007, p. 47

Minor paint cracks and abrasion along the edges and in the corners. Some loss to the white paint where the clouds meet the edges. Surface scratch to the surface of the paint, approx 4cm in the centre of the canvas, approx 56cm down from the top edge and 128cm in from the right edge. Patch of paint loss covering an area of approx 4cm, positioned approx 50cm in from the right edge and 65cm down from the top, which has been restored. Another patch to the cranes legs, approx 1.5cm, in 3cm from the right edge. Other sporadic minor areas of paint loss, some of which have been retouched.
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The challenging art of Yue Minjun, a founder and major practitioner of Cynical Realism, has been selling at record-high prices in auctions—a tribute to the enduring, if provocative imagery of the artist. The ubiquitous laughter of Yue's leering figures undermines any paradigm intended to make sense of modern life, and while Yue's compositions can certainly be seen as travesties of an undemocratic, single-party society, there is something as well that appeals to all of us, no matter what culture we may come from. Yue's allegorical appeal stems in part from the narrow spectrum of imagery he allows himself; again and again, we find him confronting public notions of the self and its discontents. His work conveys dissatisfaction, even in the most innocent settings, while his repeated use of a sharply public identity tends to yield to analysis of social mores in the life of contemporary Chinese people.

The sameness of Yue's laughter argues for a broad revision of personal life under pressure to be conformist, and as some of the portraits in drag suggest, we see Yue transgressing boundaries that are inherently traditional in Chinese culture. The artist's willful flouting of the personal in the face of circumstances that seem designed to undermine the individual only reiterate his fundamental insight, namely, that contemporary life is a stage demanding a spot-on performance of good feeling. We may be amused by Yue's reiterations, but we are also made aware of the absurd notion of self-individuation in a culture in which the communal has extreme influence; Yue's self-portraits in all manner of guises amounts to a conspicuous refusal to be swept under the rug or otherwise treated as a nonentity. Knowing the degree to which the artist resorts to stubbornness, Yue's audience suddenly realizes that his art functions as a retort to the massive pressures exerted on the individual society, mostly conformist in nature.

Yet there is little that can be done in Chinese society; the government, anonymous but all powerful, hangs like a cloud over creative initiative. Yue does his utmost to create alienated tableaus, whose noxious oblivions are rendered with a genuine feeling for the absurd. The patent strangeness of a lot of Yue's imagery tells us that we are intended, like the artist himself, to persist in a world that makes little sense. Our personal characteristics are something to cling to, no matter how small or seemingly irreverent, so that we may face with candor the onslaught of the impersonal state. In fact, over time, Yue's detachment amounts to a refusal to accept the status quo; his laugh explores the extent to which Chinese traditionalism may be resisted. Because the refusal is couched in imagistic and personal rather than political terms, it is sometimes hard to imagine Yue as specifically criticizing the state, or making fun of the Chinese embrace of the communal. But, even so, over time even a relatively naïve viewer would experience Yue's paintings as symbols of profound regret. The reiteration of Yue's image allows him to parade his sense of self in the face of constrained political freedom and the boundaries of tradition; contemporary Chinese figurative art excels in its portrayal of social considerations. Yue is one of many artists who work representationally, with insight into the processes that shape human exchange.

Yue's Immortal Cranes (Lot 38), a very large work of 200 by 280 centimeters, is ostensibly a work shot through with the absurd. With the clouds and sky as a background, Yue has painted six portraits of himself riding on the backs of red-headed cranes, traditionally auspicious symbols in Chinese art. Wearing only underwear that covers his genitalia, Yue offers his image in a variety of poses, and in all cases his laugh offers a mysterious commentary on circumstances with mythic implications. Yue tends to emphasize realist concerns, so that this representation of an absurd undertaking in believable terms has a bit of metaphysics that supports its imagery (again one thinks of the benign implications of the crane imagery). Part of Yue's strength comes from his technical skill; his command of oil painting is beyond question. But the real impact of his art has to do with his projection of himself as an Everyman, someone who undergoes fundamental situations in order to comment on the point of view such behavior affords. Art is such that we take nearly for granted the visual illogicality of a man sitting on a flying bird. Indeed, accustomed as we are to Yue's frozen images of absurdity, we do not doubt nor are bemused by his compositions.

Thus a predilection for the ridiculous positions life places us in is basic to Yue's sensibility. Is he laughing at society or at himself—or is he doing both at the same time? Despite the grinning face, there is a bleak sense of isolation we repeatedly face in Yue's art. He may be having fun, but he is going nowhere, as the repetitions of his wide-mouthed laugh suggest. The Cynical Realism Yue subscribed to in the 1980s is transformed by a broadening sense of responsibility to his imagination. There is a kind of miraculous transcendence in Immortal Cranes, which depicts metaphysical notions such as heaven and flight. His self-portraits demonstrate no anxiety about their environment, seemingly thousands of feet up in the sky. Birds are traditionally symbols of ethereal communication, in both Asian and the West; however, the state of affairs facing Yue in Immortal Cranes is hardly religious. In fact, he deliberately estranges us from his personal dilemmas because the laughter he portrays keeps us at a distance from real emotional content. Inundating us with his picture, Yue actually is describing a mask, which introduces an element of emptiness to his overall plan. As a result, no matter how naïve we may be, we find it impossible to deny Yue's portraits of absurd oblivion, which startle us into a contemplation of the unspoken ridiculousness of contemporary life.