Yue Minjun
26 Mar - 05 Jun 2011
YUE MINJUN
The Archaeological Find AD 3009
26 March – 5 June 2011
Come along to glimpse a remarkable and colourful future when the Chinese artist Yue Minjun visits ARoS with his exhibition “Yue Minjun – the Archaeological Discovery, AD 3009”
For the first time in Scandinavia, there is now to be an opportunity to experience a solo exhibition of work by the remarkable Chinese artist Yue Minjun. Minjun is represented in several art museums in Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore, and his popular art has made him into the best selling contemporary artist in China. The critics consider him to be among the most important of present-day artists in Asia. Visitors to ARoS will remember the distinctive artist for his gigantic painting “Rolling on the Grass”, representing two lobster-coloured men covered in smiles in the exhibition I LOVE YOU.
In the exhibition YUE MINJUN – The Archaeological Discovery, AD 3009 Minjun has transformed the West Gallery in ARoS into a time capsule from the year 2009 – discovered and presented by our successors 1000 years in the future. However, we soon discover that there are a good number of factual matters that the people in 3009 have misinterpreted. The dinosaur was anything but contemporary with the Audi, even though Yue Minjun’s colourful painting portrays it as such. And the basketball is used for physical exertion, not for inhaling, as the show maintains. Nor was an electric iron an ornament, but a useful tool.
In a mixture of references ranging through reminiscences from the hideous monuments of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Chinese calligraphic texts and a selection of more recent everyday objects Yue Minjun has created a bizarre atmosphere around his total artistic and archaeological display. Full of humour and subtlety, Yue Minjun’s exhibition concept raises a host of fundamental questions: Does a later age always become wiser about the lives lived by its predecessors? Is there a correct and objective way of writing social history? And is it really we or our successors in 3009 who are able to describe and interpret the world as it really is?
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Yue Minjun (b. 1962) works and lives in Beijing. He was trained in Heibei Normal University, specialising in painting in 1983. Having grown up under the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Communist Regime of Mao Tse Dong, Yue Minjun is concerned with subjects such as human identity, freedom of speech and sources of culture. In a broad field of sculpture, installation art and painting, however, the artist is best known for his characteristic portrayals of hysterically laughing people, all of whom are portraits of the artist himself.
As one of the leading representatives of the style known as “cynical realism”, Yue Minjun produces works containing a strong political appeal. After the massacre in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989, silent laughter became Yue Minjun’s typical trademark. The manic silent grins reveal a resounding void behind the row of pearly teeth. These are portraits of laughter, all of which contain an ironical comment on the Chinese people’s desire for freedom of speech and popular democracy.
Among the many sculptures, objects and paintings that can be seen at YUE MINJUN – The Archaeological Discovery AD 3009 there are also some new paintings that were made specially for the exhibition in ARoS.
The exhibition has been arranged by the curators Pernille Taagaard Dinesen and Lise Pennington, ARoS
The Archaeological Find AD 3009
26 March – 5 June 2011
Come along to glimpse a remarkable and colourful future when the Chinese artist Yue Minjun visits ARoS with his exhibition “Yue Minjun – the Archaeological Discovery, AD 3009”
For the first time in Scandinavia, there is now to be an opportunity to experience a solo exhibition of work by the remarkable Chinese artist Yue Minjun. Minjun is represented in several art museums in Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore, and his popular art has made him into the best selling contemporary artist in China. The critics consider him to be among the most important of present-day artists in Asia. Visitors to ARoS will remember the distinctive artist for his gigantic painting “Rolling on the Grass”, representing two lobster-coloured men covered in smiles in the exhibition I LOVE YOU.
In the exhibition YUE MINJUN – The Archaeological Discovery, AD 3009 Minjun has transformed the West Gallery in ARoS into a time capsule from the year 2009 – discovered and presented by our successors 1000 years in the future. However, we soon discover that there are a good number of factual matters that the people in 3009 have misinterpreted. The dinosaur was anything but contemporary with the Audi, even though Yue Minjun’s colourful painting portrays it as such. And the basketball is used for physical exertion, not for inhaling, as the show maintains. Nor was an electric iron an ornament, but a useful tool.
In a mixture of references ranging through reminiscences from the hideous monuments of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Chinese calligraphic texts and a selection of more recent everyday objects Yue Minjun has created a bizarre atmosphere around his total artistic and archaeological display. Full of humour and subtlety, Yue Minjun’s exhibition concept raises a host of fundamental questions: Does a later age always become wiser about the lives lived by its predecessors? Is there a correct and objective way of writing social history? And is it really we or our successors in 3009 who are able to describe and interpret the world as it really is?
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Yue Minjun (b. 1962) works and lives in Beijing. He was trained in Heibei Normal University, specialising in painting in 1983. Having grown up under the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Communist Regime of Mao Tse Dong, Yue Minjun is concerned with subjects such as human identity, freedom of speech and sources of culture. In a broad field of sculpture, installation art and painting, however, the artist is best known for his characteristic portrayals of hysterically laughing people, all of whom are portraits of the artist himself.
As one of the leading representatives of the style known as “cynical realism”, Yue Minjun produces works containing a strong political appeal. After the massacre in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989, silent laughter became Yue Minjun’s typical trademark. The manic silent grins reveal a resounding void behind the row of pearly teeth. These are portraits of laughter, all of which contain an ironical comment on the Chinese people’s desire for freedom of speech and popular democracy.
Among the many sculptures, objects and paintings that can be seen at YUE MINJUN – The Archaeological Discovery AD 3009 there are also some new paintings that were made specially for the exhibition in ARoS.
The exhibition has been arranged by the curators Pernille Taagaard Dinesen and Lise Pennington, ARoS