My favorite Chinese artist’s don’t copy tired and old western styles of painting like Zhu Jinshi (who for some reason is a very successful painter). I like Chinese Artists who exhibit their Chinese DNA in their work.You can’t help but love these subversive self-portraits about Yue Minjun’s cynical take on the “new” China. The kind of artist you want to have a beer with.
Immediately humorous and sympathetic, Yue Minjun’s paintings offer a light-hearted approach to philosophical inquiry and contemplation of existence. Drawing connotations to the disparate images of the Laughing Buddha and the inane gap toothed grin of Alfred E. Newman, Yue’s self-portraits have been describe by theorist Li Xianting as “a self-ironic response to the spiritual vacuum and folly of modern-day China.”
via Galleri s . e
