Post Auratic * Self Portrait of Yue Minjun CP Foundation The paintings, sculptures and installations of Yue Minjun always feature uniform laughing faces. And if these laughing faces are observed carefully, it will be noticed that these faces are the face of Yue Minjun. With these formations of self portraits, Yue Minjun presents various realities that emerge as the background behind the laughing visages. These realities emerge through various easy to recognize symbols, metaphors and signs, or through depictions of daily life.
The laughing faces and the representations of reality in Yue Minjun's works are closely related. And this relationship shows Yue Minjun's fairly easy to read cynicism in confrontation with reality. Concerning this cynicism, Yue Minjun has commented that he has commented that he senses an unrecognized power whose center is unknown, but which can engineer/manipulate the behavior of human being through intimidation and terror. This power constitutes a kind of violence that can make human behavior change progressively.
Can the works of Yue Minjun be said to be self-portraits? Does his artwork present any insight into the conflict between individuality and collectivism? Does his work indicate self-identification that represents the pressing of the self-identity into a collective existence? Of the many questions that arise, this is the most basic: Can the meaning of Yue Minjun's self-portraits be categorized as auratic or post-auratic.
Within the development of modern art, the search for reality through representation has been fully determined by the relationship between the individual absolute and reality. The individual conceptualizes reality as being in a set position, central and autonomous. The formation of concepts within this definition is fully determined by the correspondence of the concept with the object, and is not influenced by any force outside of the correspondence.
The search for reality within contemporary art exhibits a contrary tendency. The individual no longer develops a concept of reality because the position of the individual is no longer set and central, but rather without a center (ex-centric) or without a fixed central point. At the same time, the field/plain of interpretation or definition within the search for the meaning of reality continuously experiences reconfiguration. Because of that, the individual becomes unimportant in contemporary art. The question, "Who are you?" within a contemporary work of art is a polyphonous enquiry, or a question that looks both inwardly and outwardly.
"I" within the question "Who am I?" exists at a shifting position that is sometimes on the inside looking out and sometimes on the outside looking in. This is a self-identification in which the self is temporary in nature. Varies forces outside and within the self continuously influence self-identification and cause its reconfiguration. This is true of the self-identification occurring in the works of Yue Minjun, which is reflected in the tendency toward producing self-portraits.
Yue Minjun's paintings express how the "I" within his representations experiences desubstantialization because the self can easily shift from one plain of meaning to another. The face of Yue Minjun is also the face and faces of others, and these faces are similar to one another and evoke a sense of uniformity. The definition of the self in Yue Minjun's artworks does not always take the position of looking inward, in which the self becomes the object. This defining of the self can be seen as a reflection in which the self that brings a collective identity is the self, which is a part of another person, or of a society, or of humankind.
Although these paintings have been born of an experience that is very personal, the position of the individual in Yue Minjun pieces is no longer a position opposite of that of the other person or society. Because of this, the self-portraits in Yue Minjun paintings are self-portraits that are shattered. Self-portraits that is post-auratic. The self in the self-portraits of Yue Minjun is no longer personal.
This shift in self-identification in the works of Yue Mijun is related to the shifts in reality which are depicted in the representations of Yue Minjun, a reality that is influenced by the developments in the techno-industrial system, the communications revolution, and the multinational system of economics. This reality can almost not be comprehended because it is circled/surrounded by signs and symbols that no longer seek out values but instead guard the continuity of production within an economic system. Images, signs and symbols that have a massive influence that can no longer be controlled. Michel Foucault sees this as philosophical hermeneutics (techno-industrial principles that can be justified by scientific knowledge, norms and philosophy), which operate as modern bio-politics.
Whatever reality Yue Minjun sets forth in his works is a reality surrounded by those images, signs and symbols. This reality is a far cry from the "reality of nature" within the understanding of philosophy. Because of that, the representation in Yue Minjun artworks no longer attempts to seek out meaning. Yue Minjun makes no effort to comprehend the reality he is facing.
This is reflected in the uniform laughing faces that emerge in his work. Yue Minjun creates representations of his relationship with reality, which is also linked to the relationships of other people with reality. It is in this relationship that Yue Minjun senses that the reality he is facing contains intimidating forces.
These intimidating forces are also what make Yue Minjun return to the issue of the personal. This problem of the personal is a "small window" that is left with which to observe the reality surrounded by the uncontrolled images, signs and symbols. This problem of the personal that constitutes this "small window" is the basis for Yue Minjun repeated return to his own face, which, in his works, appears as more than just a self-portrait.
Within that personal dilemma explored there is a spiritual space that that cannot be pierced, let alone be dominated by the techno-industrial signs that carry the characteristics of materialism (the basis for exploration of the material world that exists within the entire development of production in this modern world). This spiritual space functions as an "emergency door" that makes sublimation possible.
Within the existentialist aesthetic, sublimation marks the effort of "the self" to eliminate the tracks of destruction resulting from the terror of reality. The laughing faces in the works of Yue Minjun indicate that the sublimation of his representations does not change pain into something humorous and pleasant, but, rather, changes the feeling of pain into an ache that no longer contains any trace of terror.
In facing the siege of signs of the techno-industrial regime, Yue Minjun does not take an oppositional stance, nor does he avoid or acknowledge these techno-industrial signs. In fact, he even makes use of these dominant signs. However, this is done through the deconstruction of those images and structures.
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* The original meaning of aura is "a distinctive but intangible quality that seems to surround a person or thing; atmosphere". The words auratic and post-auratic emerged in 1930's, first introduced into the field of art by Walter Benjamin. They were revitalized in contemporary art discourses and post-modern discourses. Please see the following two quotations for the meaning of them:
1． "Aura suggests that unique, authored works of art emit a peculiar presence and effect. Art's aura might be imagined as a fetishized glow that exudes from products of high art, untouchable, unapproachable, made by geniuses. Such art - unlike (at least potentially) mechanically reproduced art - bears a high value in cultural, moral and financial terms. Auratic artworks force the spectator to become a passive beholder drinking in the vision of genius."
——Quoted from the introduction of Walter Benjamin's from The Literary
Encyclopedia at www.LitEncyc.com
2．"......a 'post-auratic' object, deprived of aura and hence democratized by the processes of mechanical reproduction, like the photograph, for which the only 'original' is a negative."
——The Materiality of the Text-Outtake From Digital Aesthetics-By Sean Cubitt
The Wisdom of Fools
Yue Min Jun is one of the most influential artists of the school of Cynical Realism in China. Using his own image repeatedly in paintings and sculptures, he transforms himself into an icon in order to make visible the spiritual emptiness of the contemporary world. A huge, mocking grin is the trademark of his humorous yet unsettling works. His poster style paintings comment upon the role of the visual image in propaganda posters during the Cultural Revolution in China, while his contorted figures suggest the awkward status of the Chinese language in contemporary society. War and conflict, the manipulation of history and art history and the ambiguity of gender are constant themes in his works.
'By employing traditional painting and sculpture techniques, multiple clones of my self-portrait image have been created in order to invent a new idol, in a similar approach to that of the television and movies. When an image is duplicated continuously, the subsequent strength in numbers produces an immense force. Once the image transforms into an idol, I am able to manipulate and utilise the image repeatedly. An idol has a life force; it often influences our lives and regulates our conduct by setting itself as an example. A contemporary society is an idolised society; hence its culture becomes an idolised culture.'
Yue Min Jun is one of the most influential artists of the school of Cynical Realism in China that includes Fang Lijun, Liu Wei, Song Yonghong and Liu Xiaodong. In his work, he makes visible the spiritual emptiness of the contemporary world, through the repeated use of his own iconic image. Painting or making sculptures of himself bearing a huge, mocking grin and posing in awkward yet comical stances, his works are humorous and disturbing by turn.
The cumulative effect of countless mindless, silly laughing men populating his oeuvre is quite alarming. When laughter only makes sporadic appearances in life, permanent presence transforms it into something altogether more eerie. Yet Yue maintains a delicate balance. For it is also apt that art critic and curator Pi Li places him in line with a long tradition of artists throughout history who have dealt with the figure of 'the fool'. Present in the paintings of the Flemish School for example, idiots and madmen have enabled artists such as Bosch and Bruegel to satirise the ignorance and stupidity of the powerful in the societies in which they lived. Where derision might once have been directed at church and disdain at the control religion had over the people, Yue Min Jun now levels his attack at Mao Zedong and the Chinese state ideology during the Cultural Revolution and the society around him today.
Using a minimal palette to create simple compositions, Yue's bold, colourful works have an immediate visual impact. 'My preference for vibrant colours of folk culture makes my creations more universal, more attractive and hence more accepted by the public', the artist says. 'I merely want to articulate a complex issue in a simple but appealing manner.'
Indeed, characteristic of Yue Min Jun's works is the visual power produced by a strong yet simplistic symbolism. Though reminiscent of Pop Art, Yue's works in fact mimic and comment upon the use of propaganda posters produced during China's Cultural Revolution. Examining the state of mind brought about by the influence of a singular culture and ideology, the simplicity of his works at once seduces and contrives an atmosphere of hollowness and superficiality.
Many of these paintings also comment on the status of the Chinese language, which is often perceived as a pillar of Chinese culture in general. The strange contorted stances of the figures in his paintings mimic written Chinese characters in a satire of the awkward state of Chinese pictograph today.
Yue probes visual history further in his re-compositions of famous masterpieces. Taking iconic works from both Chinese and western culture, he throws them into discordance either by substituting the figures in a painting with images of himself or of others or by eliminating human presence altogether.
He explains, 'At first I thought an artist always added things to a canvas but didn't remove anything' but, if a part of a picture that is familiar to everyone is changed, it produces a special feeling 'you establish a contrast. And force viewers to think about the figures'. Works subjected to this depeopling include Lin Biao's 'Capturing Luding Bridge', Dong Xiwen's 'Founding Ceremony of China', Delacroix's 'Liberty Leading the People', Monet's 'Dejeuner sur l'Herbe' and Vermeer's 'The Lacemaker'.
Most unsettling however, are perhaps Yue's paintings of gleeful men engaging in shooting and killing sprees. He explains, 'There is no end to killing in the human race - aliens from outer space probably regard us as the Earth's laughing stock. My compositions are full of mock shooting and killing, carried out in full laughter. This is a form of ridicule at those who try to solve conflicts through violent means.'
The seeds of his cynicism can be traced back to his boyhood. Growing up in a compound of families who all belonged to the same work unit, Yue Min Jun had very little contact with the outside world. When he began to go to school, he found the atmosphere at home was claustrophobic rather than intimate, and riddled with internal antagonism. He explains, 'The work unit was small and somewhat isolated but there were still many people 'plotting' against each other - the relationships between the directors themselves, between the directors and the workers, and even between the workers were delicate and highly complicated. It occurred to me that relations between people were far different from what I had experienced at school, and it infused me with scepticism.'
Like for many worldwide, the events of 4 June 1989 at Tiananmen Square were also to have a profound effect on Yue. 'It knocked me for six and saw me lose my idealism', he says. 'Even though the ideals I held were not very strong, I still felt I had been cheated. I became dissatisfied with society'. During this time, many artists began creating works that were imbued with a sense of loss. Although Yue was to find much inspiration among his contemporaries, his works were to remain fiercely personal. 'I began to work on images of people that simultaneously aroused feelings of strength and self-mockery, which fit with my mood then and helped to relieve the unhappiness in my heart,' he explains.
The spiritual essence of the fool originates from the philosophy of Lao Zhuang. 'Scholars of historical times often displayed a sense of helplessness when faced with society's problems; most chose to give up'. Yue says. 'I feel that the act of giving up is a state of humanity; it prevents one from conflicting with society yet maintaining inner peace. To be able to give all up allows one to be nonchalant and detached. All problems can be solved with laughter - they simply disappear without causing any heartache. This is how one may attain extraordinary peacefulness within one's inner self.'
Yue is quick to admit that the carefree, or careless attitude of his foolish characters who effuse a sense of idleness, laziness, boredom and indifference reflects his own character and even contributed to his artistic calling. 'After graduation from college I got a job teaching drawing for North China Petroleum but I left to move to Yuanmingyuan', Yue says. 'My parents urged me to return to work, but I loved drawing and had totally lost interest in teaching - I don't live as my family or society expects of me'.
This nonchalance extends to his practice: 'I never study carefully the composition of my picture - whether it is wider on this side or whether the other side lacks something', he says. 'I don't care about the proportion at all. I don't even produce preliminary sketches. Once I make a decision I never make any changes to the painting. That's just my personality.'
During the early stages of his practice, Yue followed Soviet methods of observing life, using the chiaroscuro that they in turn had adopted from Renaissance painting. According to Yue however, he eventually even discarded this technique out of laziness. 'I hate putting in more strokes after having sketched out the composition. It's boring. I prefer simplicity', he declares, adding, 'A sea of strokes makes me uncomfortable'.
Instead, Yue Min Jun began producing silk-screen prints. A visit to the Venice Biennale in 1999 impressed upon him the power of repetition in generating visual force. 'A single work never achieves such power', he says, 'Media, information and other aspects of mass culture thrive on constant repetition.' By embracing the techniques of contemporary global culture, Yue eliminates traditional aesthetic conceptions of grace, poetry and the sublime. In fact, for art critic and curator Pi Li, this is perhaps what sets him apart from the rest. 'The biggest difference between other contemporary artists and Yue Min Jun,' he writes, 'is that while other artists make boring moments 'sublime' and 'poetic' he resolutely employs a mode of degradation and adulteration of the concepts of 'sublime' and 'poetic'.
Sources include: artist statements and 'As Mad As You' by Pi Li; 'Creation of a Superficial Idol', a dialogue between Li Xianting and artist Yue Min Jun, 2002; 'To Desecrate Icons with Icons' by Zhang Qing and translated by Teo Han Wue, Dawn, 28 September 2002.
Author: Diana Yeh, Visiting Arts
