You're so Manet

Manet's "A Bar at the Folies-Bergère", early 1880s

The year before his death, French painter Édouard Manet put forward his A Bar at the Folies-Bergère at the 1882 Paris Salon exhibition. The painting is both a culmination of his interest in scenes of urban leisure and spectacle, a subject that he had developed in dialogue with Impressionism over the previous decade, and also a visual conundrum in which the more the spectator considers his own role within the painting, the more he becomes aware of himself as an active element within the painting and not merely a detached viewer.

Impressionism painting characteristics include emphasis on depiction of light in its changing qualities, inclusion of movement as an essential element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles. This calls into question the world as existing objectively, thus the painter himself, and we as the spectator, become active elements within the overall reality of the painting.

Jeff Wall's "A picture for women", 1979

Wall invites his spectators to consider the gaze of the subjects from the perspective of the female model, the male photographer, and the camera, reminding us not only of Manet's work, but also of "Las Meninas" by Velasquez.


Yue Min Jun's "You're so Manet", 2001

In Yue Min Jun's work is that we can find apparent visual and stylistic consistencies within his work, including the laughing self-portrait,  repetition/ representation of the individual and the collectivity, and an artificial aesthetic.

In his work of imitations of a variety of well-known cultural and artistic references, we encounter the paradox in which on the one hand are these apparent visual and stylistic consistencies in each imitation, yet on the other hand, the implicit references contained in each painting are different.

To be continued...

Tranditional and contemporary art 山中隐者

The following piece of Yue Min Jun is part of the Labyrinthe series:

Note: in the top left hand corner is noted "寻仙问道" : if you seek spiritual immortality, ask the way".

When considering this painting, we need to consider the ideas of:
1. Nothing (Xu 虚) and Having (You 有) in Taoist thinking, corresponding to
2. Space (Xu 虚) and Fill (Shi 实)  in artistic representation

1. Having (You 有) and Nothing (Xu 虚)

In  淮南子 "Huai Nan Zi", we can find:

道始于虚霩,虚霩生宇宙,宇宙生气,(气有涯垠)。
"The origin of the Path is from Nothing, Nothing is born from the Universe, from which is born the Vital Breath, Qi."
We see the link that exists between the Path and Nothing. Sometimes the path represents the Origin, and sometimes it represents all the universe.
According to Baidu, the meaning of this is that the Path is the Path of Nothingness, the road of One, and in the final analysis, the Path of Things. This makes an alteration to "from the path is born Things" view of pre-Qin Taoist thinkers, explaining instead that "Things have a path", clearly bending towards the philospohical doctrine of materialism i.e. reality is formed by physical matter.

 In the XXV chapter, Laozi describes the Path as a manifestation of  Nothing:

"有一个东西混然而成，在天地形成以前就已经存在。听不到它的声音也看不见它的形体，寂静而空虚，不依靠任何外力而独立长存永不停息，循环运行而永不衰竭，可以作为万物的根本。我不知道它的名字，所以勉强把它叫做“道”。/ "There is something arising from a mixing, existing before Sky and Earth, that is silent and invisible, impalpable, independent from any other power and unstoppable,always in motion and never tiring, and is at the origin of all Things. Not knowing what name is has, we can call it "Path/Dao道".

On the matter of the Universe, in the 天文训 section, we can read a phrase that should be often recalled when viewing Yue Min Jun's work:

"The Path engenders One, which is the Original Qi, One is the origin of Two (the Two: Yin and Yang), Two produces Three, Three produce the Ten Thousand Beings. The Ten Thousand Beings lean on the Yin and embrace Yang. "

 "道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物, 万物负阴而抱阳".

François Cheng in "Vide et Plein" explains that in Taoiste thinking, between the Yang (as active) and the Yin (as receiving), emerge the many vital breaths of the Ten Thousand Beings. The Three represents the combining of the vital breaths of the Yin and the Yang and of the force between the two, also a vital breath. Without the intermediary force, the Three, the Yin and the Yang would be in opposition, static and undynamic. And it is from this Three that proceed the Ten Thousand Beings.

In Chinese cosmogonie, there is a double mouvement which can be represented by two axis, with the vertical axis representing the interaction between the Fill and the Space and a horizontal axis reprresenting the interaction, the core of which takes place in the Fill, of the two complementary sides Yin and Yang.

ZhuangZi in the Sky-Earth chapter writes :
"泰初有无，无有无名。一之所起，有一而未形。物得以生谓之德；未形者有分，且然无间谓之命；留动而生物，物成生理谓之形；形体保神，各有仪则谓之性；性修反德，德至同于初。同乃虚，虚乃大。合喙鸣。喙鸣合，与天地为合。其合缗缗，若愚若昏，是谓玄德，同乎大顺"。/ "The original universe existed in "Nothing", and had no name; Chaos then arose at this time but had no form. Then Ten Thousand Beings came from the Chaos in that the Yin and the Yang were already by this point separate, interlocking but separate, and called the span of life, these two produce Ten Thousand Beings  from Ten Thousand Beings comes the mechanism of life, this has a physical shape, the body that houses the spirit, each with their own trajectory and rules, which is the essence of each individual. Individuals who work on themselves will become spiritually harmonious, and when this harmony attains perfection their entity will revert back to the original state. In this state, the mind is completely clear and without limits. At this moment of being at one, is like birdsong, having no relation to negative and positive, or hate and love, and with no difference to a bird, existing in harmony with the earth and the sky. This state leaves no trace, like a savage being or the dusk itself, this is also called the mysterious road, in which one returns to the original state and returns to nature."



2. Fill and Space

The esthetic necessity of fill and space are evident: the one cannot exist without the other. 

Note the human element present in the traditional Chinese representation of a Fill and Space landscape, whereas in the Yue Min Jun painting, no human trace is to be seen. This may also remind us of paintings such as in the reinterpretation series, in which human elements in the original painting are eliminated in the Yue Min Jun version.

The beauty of the original traditional Fill and Space landscapes proceeds from the infinite possibility offered to the eye in suspension between the black ink pictoral representations and the predominantly white or entirely white regions of the canvas.

Shi Tao evokes the "sea of ink which carries and nurtures, and the mountain of the brush that stands up and dominates". François Cheng in "Vide et Plein" mentions the link between Yang, mountain and brush / Yin, water and ink.

In the fifth chapter "笔墨章第五", the painter Shi Tao 石涛 says that a human has the power of creation, since he can create a reality using the paint and the brush. Shi Tao calls the Original Chaos "waves of stone" (incidentally, the words of his vey own name). Amongst these stones caught up in a hurricane of dynamism, can be found a human presence, represented by the hermit in the mountain.

La mort de Marat

A comparison of the painting La Mort de Marat by the Chinese contemporary artist YUE Min Jun and the painting that inspired him,  La Mort de Marat, a late 18th century historical piece by French artist Jacques-Louis David.

The David painting, representing the final moments of the murdered revolutionary Marat and bearing the inscription "to Marat, David".

We can observe realist figurative elements (bath, knife, letter from Charlotte Corday), but also use of idealisation and dramatisation (the force line of the light along the diagonal, the tomb-like inscription, the heroic representation and Christ-like elements). It is clear that the painter wished to create a personable hero in order to convey a strong symbolic and political message in the historical context of 18th century France.

The backdrop however is an abstract representation occupying more than half of the upper part of the piece. If the principal figure of Marat and certain other natural elements were to be taken out, the spectator would be left in an abstract world.

The Chinese artist YUE has taken steps towards doing exactly this: he removes the figure of Marat, not only in the sense of removing his person, but all that his person represents within the limits of the artistic piece : the composition of the original pivots on the diagonal line of force alone the fallen arm of the murdered Marat (such a line of force represents the notion of tragedy in classical painting), imposing on the spectator a hierarchical relationship between the elements in the painting, by which the human tragedy of this figure is of primary importance. Furthermore, the figure of the naked Marat, marked by elements corresponding to classic esthetic ideals, is raised to a Christ-like idealisation.

YUE Min Jun's choice of this semi-abstract, semi-figurative piece as his inspiration indicates a reflection on the role of art, its uses of esthetic force to involve the spectator in emotional states and yet with a political angle.
In traditional Chinese art, the artist takes on the role of a philosopher who demands that his viewer carry out a work of self-reflection. What work of self-reflection might this artist be inciting us to carry out?

The visitors at the recent YUE Min Jun exhibition at the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain may well wonder if “the Laughing Painter", thus christened by casual art critics, is seeking an escape from his cumbersome title in these phantasmagoric pieces. Beware of superficial appearances! Is it logical to assume that the painter of Gun Gun or Mao Xing Lan, also a child of the pre-Deng Xiao Ping China of the 60s and 70s, is of a psychological profile sensitive to the demands of conformity from others? Would it not be reasonable to imagine that the Reinterpretation series corresponds to a continuation of YUE’s reflections on the identity and representation of the individual in different cultures in the modern world?

YUE Min Jun is generally considered to be a Chinese artist with an ironical vision in regard to certain elements of Chinese society. However, we might recall that this artist has never himself given precise explanations of his pieces, preferring to limit himself to anecdotal information on his generation or on his creative processes. YUE has discussed the difficulty of separating one's personal from cultural identity, yet just as he avoids being pigeon-holed as a "cynical realist", he does not appear easily classifiable as part of the fashionable new wave of China-critical Chinese artists that seem to be so pleasing to our western eye. It appears that YUE possesses a more universal quality.

Coming back to the La Mort de Marat piece, let us consider the representation of human tragedy by our modern channels of information, namely, the main-stream media. Their audience is exposed to genuine tragedy, sensationalist pieces and inane news items, arranged on the page in a non-hierarchical relationship. Thus, in the modern era, human experience is represented either through fabricated interest or sensationalist massacre. Might we, as the viewer of this representation, find it increasingly difficult to understand the role of the human individual on this confused stage? Perhaps the artist YUE Min Jun is suggesting that in this era, it is only when the representation of the tragic human figure is removed that the psyche of the viewer finds itself capable of successfully adding it back in.

It is also clear when viewing the two paintings that YUE has imposed his own distinct style of manga esthetic combined with realist depictions, which some art critics consider reflect this artist's vision of human experience in general as containing elements of farce and artificiality.

We eagerly await future exhibitions of YUE's work in Europe, and hope to continue to discover the changing face of his sharp yet elusive style.