See Yue Minjun Paintings.
Yue Minjun (Chinese:岳敏君, born 1962, Heilongjiang Province, China) is a
contemporary Chinese artist based in Beijing, China. He is best known for oil
paintings depicting himself in various settings, frozen in laughter. He has also
reproduced this signature image in sculpture, watercolor and prints. While Yue
is often classified as part of the Chinese "Cynical Realist" movement in art
developed in China since 1989, Yue himself rejects this label, while at the same
time "doesn't concern himself about what people call him."
Yue's father worked in the oil fields of northeast China, and he himself worked
in China's oil industry, before beginning studies in art in 1983. In 1989, he
was inspired by a painting by Geng Jianyi in the "China / Avant Garde" show in
Beijing, which depicted Geng's own laughing face. Disillusioned with politics by
the Tiananmen Square uprising of the same year, he moved to an artist's colony
outside Beijing in 1990. His signature style developed out of portraits of his
bohemian friends from the artists village, and soon became a popular investment
for foreigners looking to capitalize on China's opening to the west.
He has shown work internationally in many exhibitions including the 5th
Shanghai Biennale, Mahjon at Kunstmuseum Bern and Xianfeng! at Museum Beelden
aan Zee in the Netherlands. He is represented by Art Beatus in Vancouver and
Chinese Contemporary in Beijing and London. His piece 'Execution' became the
most expensive work ever by a Chinese contemporary artist, when sold in 2007 for
£2.9 million pounds (US $5.9 million) at London's Sotheby's. Until it's sale at
Sotheby's Hong Kong in 2007, this painting had been owned by Trevor Simon, a
junior investment banker who bought it with about a third of his salary while
working in the region. Simon kept this painting in storage for 10 years as
required by the conditions of sale. Chinese painting sets sales record at London
auction. Retrieved Oct 14, 2007. The record sale took place week after his
painting 'Massacre of Chios' sold at the Hong Kong Sotheby's for nearly $4.1
million. 'Massacre of Chios' shares its name with a painting of the same name,
by Eugene Delacroix, depicting the 1822 event in Greek history.
Yue Minjun’s first museum show in the United States took place at the Queens
Museum of Art, Queens, New York. The show, Yue Minjun and the Symbolic Smile
featured bronze and polychrome sculptures, paintings and drawings and ran from
October 2007 to January 2008.
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.
other artist: Raphael Paintings Frida Kahlo Paintings Douglas Hoffman Paintings Hessam Abrishami Paintings