Yue assesses art, seriously

"Nothing serious is the real seriousness," says Yue Mingjun.

Seriously.

Yue, one of the most influential artists of the Cynical Realist movement that emerged in the 1990s, has been taken seriously for a long time, as an artist who uses humor to explain a turbulent period.

In theory, Yue has suffered along with everyone else as China's art market hit the skids. His trademark self-portraits were selling for $600,000-plus last spring.

Then came the global economic crisis. Gallery sales tanked; at auctions last fall, paintings by Yue and his best-selling contemporaries went unsold.

Yue was undaunted.

"The media are making a big fuss about the impact of the economic crisis on the Chinese art market, which is a natural economic phenomenon," Yue said in an interview.

"Even if one day no one buys my work, I'll keep painting."

Yue's response to the crisis has been to strike out in a new direction with an exhibit called "The Archeological Discovery in AD 3009", in which he imagines relics of today as they may be interpreted 1000 years from now.

Typically, many of the objects are misinterpreted. For example, a telephone is identified as "accompanying instrument for opera"; an oil paint barrel is labeled as a wine vessel.

Also, for the first time, Yue appears to attach importance to the manner in which his work is displayed. The exhibit itself is part of the art, he seems to be saying. He is preparing an album of the exhibit, while also starting a new project involving vehicle design in Europe.

Yue, 49, sold his first piece for $1,500 in 1992, while living in an artist colony near the Summer Palace. A week later, an American investment banker showed up at his studio and peered at a single painting by candlelight. Reluctant to part with the piece because he was preparing an exhibition, Yue hiked the price to $5,000, expecting to scare off the buyer.

"Done!" the man replied.

Since then, the market for Chinese contemporary art has gone mad. Auction prices for China's 18 hottest artists soared 13-fold between 2003 and 2007, according to the website Artron (www.artron.net).

Yue hit it big with his colorful self-portraits, often showing exaggerated, gap-toothed laughter.

"I want to express a sense of loss, of meaninglessness in the world," Yue said. The portraits show Yue as everyman, reflecting some kind of madness and spiritual dissolution in contemporary Chinese society.

"Perhaps those crazy stock players can find themselves in those portraits," said Yue. "It's all for the art critics and collectors to decipher."

Some of the critics and collectors seem disillusioned with galleries closing and collectors unloading their collections.

"It used to be that if you had some contemporary pieces on hand, you could make some sales, but those days are gone," said Liu Yue, a gallery manager who is now taking courses on contemporary art investment at Tsinghua University.

"I think his work is over-priced," sniffed Zhao Xin, an art major at Hebei Normal University, Yue's alma mater.

But Yue himself remains upbeat.

"Don't be so depressed," he said, puffing a cigar. "There is nothing to be afraid of."

(China Daily 04/13/2009 page6)