This is a painting by Yue Min Jun, a famous contemporary Chinese artist. There is always a same man in his painting, an ordinary Chinese face with an uncomfortable grin and eyes in line. In fact, the man in his painting is himself. All his painting is a self-portrait. In the back of his every painting, a kind of political and social critic he wants to express.
This art work was completed 12 years ago. A simple structure in this painting, a yellow race man with a strange laugh and his head is cutting into half with many red flags on it. What he wants to say is the brainwashing by the Chinese communist party. Those red flags on the man’s head represent the communist party. In this way, the man smile become a symbol of helpless and ironize. Using a smile to cover the pain in the reality, pretending to be a fool in order to reduce trebles and strive for live. In the other hand, feel frustrated to the future. This is also the innovative idea of his work.
Yue Min Jun is to a large degree influenced by the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. He once said that the Tiananmen Square incident had extinguish all his patriotic to china and feel betray by his mother country. Laughing in his interpolation, not only mean happiness but also other things else. Actually, his art works contain a serious political mean.
In “memory”, it describes the feeling Chinese people in 1980s-1990s. Desperate to the past (The great leap forward) and discomposure to the future (Ding’s reform) force them just to follow the government instruction to live. In that generation, Chinese government was dedicated at indoctrinate communist thought to public. Man in the picture obviously is one of the brainwashed Chinese in that time.
One of the inspirations for Yue Min Jun came from the propaganda used by communist party (including the former USSR). In his eyes, those smiling in posters are usually shows the opposite of the truth. Thus, this is why he chose a laughing man as an ironic object.
In fact, Yue Min Jun’s work shows a typical mind of those people who gone through the hardest and darkest period in China. His work also shows a pathetic attitude toward China and Chinese under the rude of Chinese communist party. “Memory”, is a work want to alarm people attention of their blinding eyes or want to tell the world what is happening to the Chinese? Or even it is just a normal art work without any political meaning? It depends on every spectator eyes.
