Art Beatus (Vancouver) Consultancy Ltd. is delighted to present an exhibition of silkscreen prints by Yue Min Jun.  One of China’s most important avant-garde artists, Yue’s signature style is instantly recognizable and won him a spot in 1999 at the 48th Venice Biennale.  Yue’s comical, almost pop-art-like works are infectious and humorous, yet the massive grin with more teeth than you would want to count is also mocking and a little unsettling.  Reminiscent of propaganda posters used in the Cultural Revolution in China, his works comment on the spiritual emptiness of the contemporary world.  Yue Min Jun’s prints will be on display from Friday, September 9 to Tuesday, November 8, 2005.

Yue Min Jun was born in 1962 in the town of Daqing in the province of Hei Long Jiang, China.  6 years later he moved to Beijing and in 1985, studied in the Oil Painting Department of Hebei Normal University in China.  It was in the early 1990’s, shortly after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and the closure of the “China Avant Garde” exhibition at the China National Gallery in Beijing by authorities, that many artists in China came together and formed a movement known as Cynical Realism.  Artists commonly engaged in self-mockery in their works which helped to relieve a sense of loss and idealism.  Yue Min Jun is regarded as one of the most famous ‘Cynical Realists’ today.  Drawing from a visual background of images, the artist uses his own portrait repeatedly in various silly guises and ludicrous poses, sometimes creating a parody of Chinese, Western or Christian art and iconography.

The artist uses a minimal palette to create his works but his use of bold colour and concise definitive lines makes an immediate impact upon viewers.  The artist began producing silkscreen prints when he realized the strength of repetition in creating a visual force.  ‘A single work never achieves such power.  Media, information and other aspects of mass culture thrive on constant repetition’.  As for the artist’s trademark smile, Yue Min Jun says, “Laughter is a moment when our mind refuses to reason.  When we are puzzled by certain things, our mind simply doesn’t want to struggle, or perhaps we don’t know how to think, therefore we just want to forget it”.  Yue Min Jun’s popularity continues to rise; his painting, “The Sun” just sold for $185,000.00 US at Christies in Manhattan, tripling its original estimate.