SHARING WITH ME

I can’t remember where I first saw Yue Minjun’s work. He’s a very discreet Chinese artist and what we were about to see was his first major retrospective in Europe of some 100 or more pantings at the Cartier Foundation. The title was YUE MINJUN - L’Ombre du Fou Rire - which if anything, intrigued me as «a shadow of tittering laughter» although not a good translation gives some idea that this could be black humor. On the Rostrum of Tiananmen, 1992 At the beginning his work has individual features but as time goes by, this disappears and all the faces start to resemble his own.  He depicts himself in improbably, impossible and even so they say, highly poetic situations. I did not see any of the latter. Many are surrealist and probably reveal dreams. Dream is perhaps not the best word for the Mao period but his earlier paintings do not escape this theme and although all the faces maybe laughing, it is very sad. The irony of such a political situation is never far from the eye. Nic