Shine With Grace: Art On Sunday - Yun Minjun, His USD3M Painting And More

Art On Sunday - Yue Minjun, Being Critical By Being Superficial

Published August 26th, 2007 in Art.

Yue Minjun has became extremely famous since this May, after his painting, “Portrait of the Artist and His Friends” was sold for more than USD3M in Sotheby’s Spring Auction of Contemporary Chinese Art.

In Yue Minjun’s works, what you’ll find is one after one laughing faces. They are indeed his “self portraits” depicted dramatically using high contrast colours in some what surreal settings.

I have always found laughter irresistible-well, at least I don’t dislike it. I paint people laughing, whether it is a big laugh, a restrained laugh, a crazy-laugh, a near-death laugh or simply laughter about our society: laughter can be about anything. Laughter is a moment when our mind refuses to reason. When we are puzzled by certain things, our mind simply doesn’t want to struggle, or perhaps we don’t know how to think, therefore we just want to forget it. The 90’s is the time when everyone should laugh.Artists are the kind of people who always like to reveal to the simple, innocent and humble souls the never-ending illusion of our lives.

~ Yue Minjun talked about art

When I was small I was told how to think and act and what to believe. And I also thought that it was normal and hopeful to live in that particular way. When I grew older I found that the world and the other people were not that simple. There was much struggle between different people… I felt like being fooled for some decades when the June Fourth Incident broke out…

Yue Minjun is a representative of the generation of contemporary Chinese artists who differentiated much from the traditional painters, whom were viewed as the product of the rapid development of the mainland China since the late 80’s and the commercialisation / globalization of the society.

Besides the absurd and halo laughing faces, Yue also likes to use repeated images. He said he got the idea when we visited the Venice Bi-annual art festival in 1999. “Repeated images have its power”, he said, “and this is exactly what the modern media is doing, creating one after one faceless idols using the same formula.”

Yue has always been created for being too commercial. “Yes of course I think about commercial elements. In the modern world nobody can run away from commercialisation.”

When asked how did he feel about the USD3M auction price of his painting, he said, “I don’t why the price is so high!”