EXHIBITED: Reproduction Icons: Yue Minjun Works, 2004 - 2006, He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, June 1 - 11, 2006

ILLUSTRATED:
Collected Edition of Chinese Oil Painter Volume of Yue Minjun, Sichuan Publishing Group Co. LTD,
Sichuan Fine Arts Publishing House, Chengdu, 2006, color illustrated, p. 93
Reproduction Icons: Yue Minjun Works, 2004-2006, He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, 2006, color illustrated, p. 98

Yue Minjun was a member of the "Cynical Realist" school that emerged over the period 1989 - 1991, following the traumatic events of 1989 (which included the Tiananmen Square massacre, and also the closing after just one day of the China Avant-Garde Exhibition at the National Art Gallery in Beijing). Cynical Realism was one of the most important movements in contemporary Chinese art.

Yue Minjun and his contemporaries grew up amidst the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, but then experienced China's opening to the West, which encouraged them to explore different artistic styles and different types of subject matter. Having been forced to produce propaganda posters when they were young, they relished having the opportunity to express themselves freely, and experimented with individualistic depictions of unease, anger and confusion. In 1989, this new world of artistic freedom suddenly collapsed; the following two years were, as might be expected, a period of depression and isolation for them. Subsequently, they found a very "Chinese" solution to the situation they found themselves in; they realized that the best way to counter the idiocy of the society in which they were living was through humor and irony; for the Cynical Realists, humor became a weapon. Yue Minjun emerged as one of the most important members of the Cynical Realist movement.

Yue Minjun was born in 1962 to parents who both worked in China's petroleum industry; as a result, he had a peripatetic childhood, moving from one oilfield to another, and growing up in what was a very insular, self-contained environment, more or less cut off from the wider Chinese society. Yue studied at Hebei Normal University, where he majored in oil painting. After graduation, he was able to secure a steady job as an art teacher. However, this job provided Yue with no artistic inspiration, so he resigned, and went to live in a decrepit artists' village on the outskirts of Beijing. Is it better to laugh or cry? As he began to experience the absurdities of life, Yue found himself faced with this age-old question. Yue himself puts it this way: "When you laugh out loud, roar with laughter, laugh at something, or laugh madly, you are laughing at death, and also laughing at society; there are elements of both. Laughter is a refusal to think; there are some things that your brain just cannot process, and needs to reject. The era that we are living in is a period in which you can only laugh at what is going on around you." Yue Minjun chose to laugh, and in doing so created a highly successful image which, with its incisive exaggeration, has become one of the most recognized symbols of contemporary Chinese art. The human figures shown laughing for no apparent reason, and the bantering raillery directed at political structures, embody the mocking tone that Yue takes towards the realities of contemporary life, as well as the sense that none of it really matters, and that the whole thing is just a big joke. Starting from these beginnings, the laughing face has come to constitute an important element in almost all of Yue's works.

In the "Hats" series, on which he began to work in 2004, Yue Minjun undertakes a further exploration of people's identity and roles within society. Yue has stated that the inspiration for the "Hats" series came from seeing the olive wreaths that medal-winners wore at the Athens Olympics in 2004, which got him thinking about how hats and other head-wear denote personal identity, social status, nationality, and ethnic identity. In this particular work - "Hats Series - Welcome" - Yue continues to make use of his laughing face motif. The human figures depicted in the painting have ruddy skin, perfect teeth and tightly closed eyes, and display a range of odd, comical actions and expressions; through the ironic depiction of these actions and expressions, Yue is able to express the spiritual emptiness of contemporary Chinese society.

What is most distinctive about Yue's work is the combination of the power of pop art or poster art with a spare, succinct visual impact. The painting shows four human figures with different identities, including a naval rating, a merchant seaman, and a "gentleman." They are shown with their arms extended in a gesture of welcome; each of them has Yue's characteristic laughing face. Giving each of the figures a different hat provides them with different identities. Like the other works in this series, this painting shows how people in society take on different roles, and how they may sometimes need to conceal their real self. Yue believes that hats, more than anything else, serve to express individual personality. "Choosing a hat is not something that has ever been done casually. A hat is an expression of our self-image and personal style." Yue adds that people should think carefully when choosing a hat for themselves; if you are too casual about it, you could end up "wearing the wrong hat" (a Chinese idiom that means being labeled as something you aren't).