Yue Min Jun: Home

Yue Minjun (b.1962, Daqing, China) is a prominent figure in contemporary Chinese art renowned for his own face captured in a state of hysterical laughter with exaggerated limbs and gestures, a motif that recurs across his oil paintings, sculptures, and prints. These enigmatic self-portraits act as a lens through which he comments on the social and political state of modern China. Yue is one of the influential figures of the Cynical Realism movement, a contemporary movement in Chinee art, developed in the 1990s. Cynical Realism described the status of living with a cynical and ridiculing art attitude, using self-opinion to understand the political and commercial. It arose throughout the pursuit of individual expression by Chinese artists who broke away from the collective mindset that existed since the Cultural Revolution. Yue takes a critical look at contemporary Chinese society but tends to use humor and satire to soften the criticism.