Minjun Yue

Born 1962 Daqing, China.
Lives and work in Beijing, China.

«Yue Minjun was one of the most important painters of Cynical Realism among Chinese artists of the 1990s. Early in the 1990s when he was at the painters village of Yuanning Yuan, the former Summer Palace, his work appeared under the socially uniform culture and thought, the style depicting rows of laughing people without brains like in Wild Joy Happening on a Tower over the City (1991), Friends (1992), and so on. In his works a kind of indulging into imagination and being drunk of himself is to be found, with a taunting tone doubting the real existence and in absurd forms the reality of chinese history from the 60s onward is salient in his pictures. One aspect of his works are bring bold heads, exaggerated bodies, wide open mouths with small white teeth, laughing a reduplication of his self portrait in rows, having the Tian' anmen as background, red flags, the sun, slogans, red lanterns, red balloons, military caps, all symbols of militarism. These structures of idols are the signifying characteristics penetrating Yue Minjun's works. In fact these idols were eternal for Chinese of the 1990s, a deeply patterned search in anxiety and hope, but he imaginarily dissolves and creates a superficial plane without depth.» Feng Boyi