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....

We were to go and see the Australian exhibition this afternoon, but Swanie bowled me over. If anything, she is beautiful and square young lady and certain subjects are tut-tutted....so when she suggested that we went to see «Sexual Nature» - the sexuality of animals, I could have been struck down by a feather. Animals and the two legged human variety apparently do not come under the same banner. This is a moving exhibition which has come from the National History Museum in London. I don’t think anyone will disapprove if I take their article discreetly from the home page. Sexual Nature leaves little to the imagination. From the moment visitors enter the exhibition’s sensual low-lit environment, they’ll see and hear mother nature at her most sexually active as we explore how animals do it. Visitors will see courtship rituals and seduction techniques, from moonwalking manakin birds to present-giving dance flies. They’ll also see the aggressive side of sexual nature and discover some ...