Another prince of Hippie in the 1990s, who overthrows loftiness and makes a witty use of irony, is Yue Minjun.

The young images painted by Yue Minjun is absolutely individualistic and typical. Every figure in his painting is just the deductive result of his own image, no matter it's single, double or in group, all laughing crazily with big open mouths. Such laughing image excludes the well-expected content and personality by its high typification, leaving only a forever mocked visual sign that people can see and feel. Totally depending on this sign, the personal idea and cultural attitude of Yue Minjun could be delivered to others. And just because of such repeated images, people remembered Yue Minjun. He made the head of man a swimming pool, in the water of which is just the laughing "visual sign"; or produced a body without head running with an also laughing big head in hands. Moreover, he reproduced Dlacroix's Liberty Leading the People by "his" group images. Hero of World War II, Churchill's gesture of "V", which is frequently seen in the film, became a image of lark in Yue Minjun's hand, who lies on his back with legs spreading and rising up. In a word, everything is so unexpected but reasonable. The scene of two guys playing the children's game "Kill unless Surrender" in the painting "Freeze", seems to let the contemporaries recall the memory of childhood, but to mock the collective memory of a time through jocose expression, which shows Yue Minjun's own cultural attitude when going into 1990s. Specifically speaking, he explains a kind of plot or words, which used to be serious, by jocose expression. In his own words: "Laughing is the refusal of thinking, is the escape from something impossible or hard to think about." The 1990s is just the days when China stepped into economic orbit, and the Chinese people liked to clear up politics and living a comfortable and ordinary life; regarding this situation, the more sharply and wittily artists responds, the more recognizable in this epoch.

Yue Minjun's intent to dilute and mock the political past is quite obviously and he has cleverly established his own image of delivery. as a damage of diversification and apt to be tired of , the repeated silly laughing faces gain original changes and meanings attractive for appreciation and understanding by his putting them into various scenes. Its comicality helps in being accepted by the people in 1990s, especially the Young, who has a collective weary and helpless feeling of politics or serious faces. Therefore the young lives under his paint-brush are all pleasing, though mainly individuals in virtual scenes. (Susan)

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Quoted from "Fireworks of Visual Pause" (Wang Chengjun, art critic)---catalogue of the exhibition "A Point in Time--Changsha", Beauty Art Museum, Hunan province, China, 2002

Yue Minjun presents the most extreme but also the most common states in his repeated self-portraits with his salient style. Boundless arrogance and banter are presented positively as retrospection about sense and experience, bringing us a new visual understanding of the individual. Among those artists who attempt to explain life and art from the humorous angle since early 1990s, Yue Minjun does it in a most thorough way, thus becomes the most typical representative of "Cynical Realism". His latest works continue with the past concept, only have more political allegories onto the canvas to mock gently the Chinese without personalities as well as to do a self-mockery. He made us believe that: Humor is a kind of wisdom, and also a power to affront the life. (Susan)

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Quoted from "Portrait of the Chinese in Millennium" (Tang Xin, Director of Artang Art Center)---catalogue of the exhibition "Song Zhuang", Stadtische Galerie im Buntentor Bremen & Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, Germany, 2001

Yue Minjun's works mainly use himself as an element. It is a kind sympathy to self-amusement, self-solace and reclusion in an unconsciously and uneasy loneliness; a favor of simplicity and innocent; a search for happiness. Growing up hardly in Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Reform of the Open Policy, the modern people suffered float and faint in the mighty mechanical power of duplicate of commercial economy. Why not just laugh out of court. "Laughing is the refusal of thinking."(Yue Minjun) But such endless silly laugh obliges the audience to think it over.(Susan)

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Quoted from "Yue Minjun" (Sabine Kunz, art critic)---catalogue of the exhibition "Song Zhuang", Stadtische Galerie im Buntentor Bremen & Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, Germany, 2001

In the history of European Art, it is rarely to see laughter in art works. Only at the gate of Gothic church can we see Devils and Belials with an evil sneer. In addition, court jesters and madmen in Baroque paintings also grin a lot. Laughing is an subject people has avoided to paint for a long time, because it looks like desperate screaming without the cooperation of voice.

In China, overjoyed behaviors are hard to be accepted until today, and the presentation of laugh is even more rare in paintings. It is such ambivalent psychological effect that 38-year-old Chinese artist Yue Minjun utilizes and promotes. In his paintings, dozens of male clones are laughing with big open mouths. They are all transfiguration of Yue Minjun's self-portrait. Out of the big mouths protrude all their teeth, with bitter laughter emitted from the dark oral cavity, or choked in the throat?

The ridiculousness of such scenes are strengthened through body postures by Yue. Sometimes the bodies march uncomfortably like soldiers, sometimes twist into painful and factitious poses. Besides, each of the figures-though they appear in a large quantity-feels isolated. They are floating in empty spaces, full of contradictions in their existence. Regarding this, Chinese art critic Li Xianting comments that these paintings are ironical replies to the spiritual vacuum and the absurdity abundant in nowadays Chinese everyday life.

Two years ago, Yue started to make sculptures. He cast moulds out of his own body with polyester, made 25 similar figures and arrange them by an accurate order. They are also laughing with big open mouths. Happiness is hanging over their necks like heavy stones. Maybe, they just find it hard to afford a collective happiness.

At the same time, they arose an unhappy memory of famous Terracotta Soldiers which were discovered in an hillock near Xi'an in 1974. 2,200 years ago, the first Emperor of China made over 7,000 soldiers to guard his mausoleum. These soldiers are made of hard clay by unitive standard, higher than actual persons. According to the quantity and strict arrangement, they presented a collectivity, in which individuals must serve for the whole. The art works of Yue Minjun are critically based on this Chinese traditional concept. (Susan)

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Quoted from "A Journey to China" (Inghild Karlsen, Director; Per Gunnar Tverbakk, Managing Director)---catalogue of the exhibition "HOT POT-Chinese Contemporary Art" Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, Norway, 2001

Yue Minjun, famous for his easily recognizable paintings and sculptures of laughing men, often placed in well known historical and religious contexts. Yue is very productive and is one of the most central representatives of the post 1989 Cynical Realism.

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Quoted from an introduction by courtesy of Urs Meile (Director of Galarie Urs Meile), CH Lucernce---catalogue of the exhibition "HOT POT-Chinese Contemporary Art" Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, Norway, 2001

Yue Minjun's works are instantly recognizable. They invariably contain one or more laughing faces with bright, white--and seemingly far too many--teeth. This laughing face-an approximate caricature of the artist himself-is placed in different settings and multiplied in various combinations. It recurs both in paintings and sculptures. In one series, these risible figures are inserted into key paintings from the history of European art, such as Manet's Le déjeuner sur I'herbe and Dlacroix's Liberty Leading the People (the Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura uses a similar approach in his art, but to quite different effect). Velázquez' Infant Margarita will never be quite the same after one has seen Yue Minjun's uproarious drag version. At other times, it is the canonical images of Chinese culture that are the subject of his spirited interventions. His figures seem to laugh their way through history's visual topics-from the idealizing propaganda posters of Chinese Socialist Realism to the Christian paintings of the descent from the cross, the effect can vary from hysterical camp to sober and lucid social criticism, and from the comical to the disquieting, although the laughter itself is always the same.

The 25 identical clones of Yue Minjun's sculpture group Twenty-First Century laughingly standing to attention do not, however, appear all that cheerful. For why are they laughing? It may be that their laughter is that of the Asian which Westerners frequently find unsettling; a laughter emitted in embarrassing situations as a means to avoid losing face, or intended to distract from tragedy or pain. It may be the laughter that hides anger, or is used to avoid conflicts. It may also be the frustrated and helplessly cynical grin of the post 1989 generation. Yue Minjun may be laughing at society, but if he is, then hardly because he finds it funny.

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Quoted from an introduction by courtesy of Verena Formanek (Research Assistant & General Direction)---catalogue of the exhibition "Ornament and Abstraction", Foundation Beyeler, Switzerland, 2001

We encounter another phenomenon of mass ornamentation in the 25 laughing faces on life-size sculptures that stand, arms linked, dressed in jeans and American T-shirts. This is how the Chinese artist Yue Min Jun presents himself and his work. His figures are arranged in a strict order but they do have a touch of individuality. This is in the strange facial expression and a penetrating, almost bizarre laughter. The laughter alienates and frightens. On the immediate level it is frozen in the material, polyester; the black hair is severely parted and artificial and the figures all have a huge mouth out of which all 32 teeth protrude provocatively. Is the artist suggesting the different meaning of laughter in intercultural discourse?

The secret may lie in the fact that this is the face of the artist himself, these are self-portraits, cloned over and over again in the third dimension. The work arouses associations of the terracotta army of the Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi (c.210 BC), the mass parades on Tienamen Square and, in the European tradition, possibly the sculptures of the Baroque artist Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. In his grimacing faces as well, the meaning of laughter within the European culture is not easy to decipher. It is hard to see any liberating element in this laughter, it is either too close to a scream or a secretive grin. Roland Barthes described the famous Asian smile as enigmatic in Empire of Signs Is it always reflected in the watcher's face, so remaining a secret to us?

But we could be looking at an army of conformist leisure-seekers, as are to be found in every country and culture. Now they stand before us, grinning maliciously and making very strange twisted body movements. They are certainly very far removed from the mass parades once held by the National Socialists, but Kracauer's Mass Ornament is present here. The artist's subjective gaze makes it possible to experience individuality again.

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Quoted from "Cynical Realism and Chinese Avant-garde Painting" (Jin-sup Yoon, Chairman of Korean Art Critic Association)---catalogue of the exhibition "China! 3 Faces + 3 Colors", Gallery Artside, Seoul, Korea, 2003

Yue Minjun, another leading artist in Cynical Realism, is famous for silly laughing man. The humorous character with a big open mouth already attracted many Korean art lovers during the exhibition, 5 Chinese Avant-Garde Artists at Gallery Artside in 2001. The art of Yue Minjun is based on his own smile and therefore the pink laughing man in his painting is Yue Minjun himself. The vibrant colors of pop culture makes his laughing man more universal and attractive in this mass culture today. The philosophical background of Yue Minjun's laughing face originates from Lao Zhuang's Taoism. Like the old philosopher, Yue Minjun wants to be truly nonchalant and detached. Therefore, instead of fighting against the society, Yue Minjun forsakes everything and laughs. However, it is not difficult to see his sharp cynical view on the society in his idolized self-image.

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Quoted from "Cynical Realism and Works of Yue Minjun and Yang Shaobin" (Li Xianting, Art Critic)---catalogue of the exhibition "Faces Behind the Bamboo Curtain: Works of Yue Min Jun and Yang Shao Bin", Schoeni Art Gallery, HK, 1994
The basic language style of Yue is tactic repeated images of silly laughter, which is a sign with a taste of symbol. It constitutes an absurd dashing scene with the background of Tian An Men under a blue sky and white clouds, which shows the irony towards impersonalized and unified reality. The thin-coated brushwork without a trace on the canvas, and the raffish color used in commercial ads add in a feeling like the numerous reproduction by commercial machines to the tactic signs of impersonalized man. This is the most unique component of his language, which both represents the absurd brought about by the damage of commercial culture to socialist ideology - consume the free-hand ideology by commercial way, and alludes to the encroachment of commercial culture to human being by the collocation of free-hand impersonalized images, which produce a feeling of double irony. Recent days he manipulates the tactic figures into an inverted and floating state, thus a feeling of dizziness and uncertainty comes out, which is a metaphor of the blank feeling at the end of the century; or the spiritual homelessness produced by the changes going on in China. Undoubted there is some feeling of the uncertainty and vacuity in today's spiritual world, but at the same time holds an humor of drifting with the tide, self-mockery and jocose. (Susan)

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Quoted from an introduction by courtesy of Monica Dematté (Art Critic)---catalogue of the exhibition "Open Boundary: the 48th Venice Biennale", Venice, Italy, 1999

The full-toothed laughter of the clones in Yue Minjun's work (you can actually count all thiry-two teeth) rings false - especially as in red life the artist laughs very rarely, and this version of himself (each clone is a self-portrait) seems to exists on canvas alone. Li Xianting, one of the greatest of contemporary Chinese art theorists, says of Yue Minjun that "he constructs his artistic language as a self-ironic response to the spiritual vacuum and folly of modern-day China." It is as the mass of contradictions faced everyday were so absurdly dense that they led to a sort of pathological dissociation from self, expressed through these grotesque portraits.

The technique used is similar to that in advertising and propaganda posters: sharp outlines and rather even fields of color which give a' Pop art' effect. In the works of recent years, the simplified human figures are generally all dressed alike and painted in a limited range of colors：the skin is a very kitsch pink ,the lips are red and the disproportionately large inside of the mouth is done in perfect black. The gaping mouth occupies most of the face and is contrasted with the eyes, slits that are so tightly shut that vision is impossible. The visual impact of the works is enhanced not only by their mere size - some are enormous - but also by the complexity of their composition. These figures - as unseeing as they are insincerely jovial - are often in poses taken from Christian iconography or from popular Chinese art: the riddled body of St. Sebastian becomes a jolly scarecrow complete with totally-unfazed birds perching on the shoulders, whilst the 'greetings' putti of Chinese folklore are shown astride fat 'good luck' fish and painted as caricature portraits of the artist. Yue draws freely on the whole range of images that have formed his visual heritage over the years - and obviously one component of that heritage is the forced optimism of the figures in the art of revolutionary realism.

In his very recent series Life(1999), the artist has broken the previous compositions down into smaller canvasses. There is a paradoxical relation between title and work, which only serves to heighten the sense of the absurd. Again these are self-portraits, but this time the focus is on the posing of the body, shown in forced, impractical attitudes. The skin tone has changed and become yellowish (which is more what one would expect of a Chinese portrait)-but the color is that of someone caught in a glaring headlight. Hence the light is as artificial as the expression on the face and the posture of the body. The effect of depth technique tends to render the surface of the work very flat.

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Quoted from "China, the Body Everywhere?" (Henry Périer，PhD, Art History, Curator of the exhibition) --- catalogue of the exhibition "China, the Body Everywhere?", the Museum of Contemporary Art in Marseille, France, 2004

Yue Minjun would appear to have died laughing at seeing himself so red still, in his portraits multiplying that face, hilarious to the point of tears, and seeming, so cleverly, only to make fun of himself.

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Quoted from "Seven Chinese Artists and Contemporary Chinese Art After Political Pop" (Li Xianting，Art Critic and theorist)---catalogue of the exhibition "4696/1998: Contemporary Art from China", Art Beatus Gallery, Vancouver, Canada; Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York, USA, 1998

Stylistically distinct is Yue Minjun, an artist to emerge from the later phases of cynical realism. His works share some similarities with other cynical realists. Viewing all things as equal, he depicts himself and some vapid, coincidental, and preposterous fragments of his environment in the style of cynical realism. Repeatedly, he employs his self-image, constructing a repertoire of ludicrous gestures as the rhetoric of his work. Through self-mockery, he expresses the void, the ennui in his state of existence. The invisible trace of the brush on Yue's pictorial surface also resembles a commentary. With dull or gaudy color, a perfect strategy is found here to convey Yue's themes of boredom, superficiality, and sarcasm.

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Quoted from "China - Contemporary Painting" (Dieter Ronte，Director of Bonn Art Museum) --- catalogue of the exhibition "'Quotation Marks': Chinese Contemporary Paintings", Singapore Art Museum; "China!", Bonn Art Museum, Germany, 1997

But we wouldn't be in the land of smiles if we didn't see the smiling Chinese. Yue Minjun devotes himself exclusively to this theme. But his smiling figures are transvestites; partly based on Western pictures in the new uniform of Chinese openness. The poses in the pictures often repeat socialist realism; they are at the same time put in an ironic connection.

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Quoted from "Present-day Chinese Painting" (Li Xianting，Art Critic and theorist) --- catalogue of the exhibition "'Quotation Marks': Chinese Contemporary Paintings", Singapore Art Museum; "China!", Bonn Art Museum, Germany, 1997

(2. Cynical Realism and Ennui) Yue Minjun's works are, in large part, self-portraits in which he depicts superficiality and boredom, with bright colors in the style of commercial advertising placards.

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Quoted from Walter Smerling (Founder of the Foundation of Art and Culture, Bonn) --- catalogue of the exhibition "'Quotation Marks': Chinese Contemporary Paintings", Singapore Art Museum; "China!", Bonn Art Museum, Germany, 1997

In the picture of this artist there are a number of totally identical, almost cloned, human beings who attract attention by means of the wide laugh on their faces.

China - the country of smiles. This metaphor is ushered in here to add absurdness in a most impressive way. This laugh, however, only has a lively and cheerful effect on the first viewing - there is an inner, latent danger or, sometimes, pain, there as well.

This laugh is like a shark's laugh. It does not primarily demonstrate openness, but is rather the fa?ade concealing different thoughts behind it. It is a laugh that is seldom infectious, but upon closer observation one that gets stuck in the throat, and frightens.

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Quoted from "Understand China and Chinese Modern Art, Based on Comments of the Centuries" (Jang Kyung-Hwa, Director of Exhibitions)---catalogue of the exhibition "Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition: Red Land, China", Gwangju Art Museum, Korea, 2002

Yue Minjun has been quite an active role in the international art world since 1987. Recently, Koreans also recognize him as one of the pioneers of Chinese avant-guard art. A new category of Chinese avant-guard art - Cynical Realism emerged after 1989. Yue Minjun is one of its leader. His intension of art is extremely unique, using the continuously same subject.

The figures in his works are smiling all the time. Such smile looks like jeer or sneer but pleasant in effect. Though a little bit illusive and fatuous, it represents those from the cockles of the heart. He puts forward questions for us: "What is 'Existence'? What' s there in the reality? Are his works in our eyes advertisements or political propaganda? Whom does the reality belong to, artists or viewers?" It is the innermost blindness from the past to the future that Yue Minjun boldly painted out.

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Quoted from "Is It a Fair Sky after a Dream" (Zhang Qing，Curator and Director of Shanghai Biennale Office, Shanghai Art Museum)---catalogue of the exhibition "Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition: Red Land, China", Gwangju Art Museum, Korea, 2002

Terracotta is a rare chance for archeologists, and a knowledge of Empire Qing's commanding and extremely arrogant life as well as his military theory. However, it is a big money for tourist industry and no one knows how much they earned from it. Partly by its elicitation, Yue Minjun named 25 identical figure statues "Chinese Contemporary Terracotta". At the same time, he disclosed a problem: under the influence of

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Quoted from "5 Chinese Avant-Garde Artists" (Yun Che-Gab，Curator of Gallery Artside) --- catalogue of the exhibition "5 Chinese Avant-Garde Artists", Gallery Artside, Seoul, Korea, 2001

Yue Minjun's art is the typical example of "cynical realism". His artworks are filled with numerous laughing figures or men with humorous pose. His mocking attitude such as cynicism and nihilism toward contemporary people and civilization is the natural result of the spiritual emptiness after Tian'anmen Square catastrophe.

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Quoted from "We All Laugh" (Julia Colman, Chinese Contemporary Ltd.) --- catalogue of the exhibition "Yue Minjun, Red Ocean", Chinese Contemporary Art UK, London, UK, 2000

Yue Minjun is one of the most important Beijing-based artists of the Chinese avant-garde. He is part of the key movement of the post-1989 era in Chinese avant-garde art - Cynical Realism . Cynical Realism developed in the aftermath of the events of 1989 which included not only the demonstrations at Tian'anmen Square but also the closure earlier that year of the "China Avant-garde" exhibition at the China National Gallery in Beijing by the authorities. As the 1980s were characterized by great idealism and hope in the artistic community that they would be able to contribute to the regeneration of Chinese culture, the 1990s were characterized by a loss of idealism, a more ironical or personal viewpoint and a greater detachment from any regeneration of society.

Yue Minjun's works are instantly recognizable by the characteristic laughing figure, actually the artist himself, depicted in various guises in virtually all his works. The figure has more teeth than one could possibly want, like the expensive smiles of fashion models advertising the latest whitening power of a toothpaste brand. This figure also shares the exaggerated nature of these advertising images. Yue Minjun's trademark smile is many things at once. It is hilarious and infectious yet cynical and mocking. It appears superficial, mindless, even ridiculous but is deeply revealing and compelling. There are instant parallels to be drawn with the Social Realist propaganda posters of earlier eras of communism. There are the bright colors, the intense enthusiasm in the expressions of the figures and the implied joy and total fulfillment if one adopts the message of the poster/painting as one's own mission. The difference is in the initial innocence of any idealistic movement there is no taint of cynicism but China post-1989 is a much less utopian place.

A wonderful take-off of the propaganda poster is the painting "Red Flag". This work could be straight out of an advertising campaign for the 1970s music group Village People. The figure in the painting is a PLA soldier gone camp. All that is left of his soldier's uniform is the cap. We see a nude torso adorned with a pink bow tie and a tattoo of a dragon. The multicolored balloons in the background, recalling those always launched at any Chinese celebration, contribute to the crazy party atmosphere. The smile is there, provocative and willful. The work is a sign of liberation in its obvious references to gay men but even more significant is that a Chinese artist can thus appropriate and subvert the revered Peoples Liberation Army. Mockery of even greater sacred images is found in "The Five Greats". This is a take-off of a famous image of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. Yue Minjun has left Mao but places him in the company of Piero della Francesca, a character from the cartoon series The Simpsons, a rooster and the artis himself, as usual in his laughing guise. While in the original image Mao is serious and surely inspired, he too laughs with Yue Minjun in "The Five Greats".

What are Yue Minjun's figures laughing at or about? In some works it is easy to believe at first they may be laughing at their own situation in the painting-for example in "Paradise" they are floating on clouds and obviously enjoying it. But then does the title "Paradise" mean they are dead? Are they happier there than alive? If so, why? What happened? Initial hilarity quickly gives way to darker thoughts - all is not as it seems, something is not quite right and it is probably quite wrong. Then again perhaps they have always wanted to float on clouds and doing so is paradise. It is this ambiguity that is disturbing in Yue Minjun's work. It parallels a life that is not all it appears to be. On the surface all is hilarious, all is fun but that smile is too perfect, then grin a little too forced. Its repetition in a given painting and its repetition throughout the artist's work makes one suspect things are not at all perfect.

Some recent work has concentrated on a cosmetic, make-up theme. In "Red Ocean" three ostensibly ecstatic characters float above a sea of red flags while they apply makeup. As with all Yue Minjun's works the figures are men but these men have manicured and varnished fingernails and lipstick of differing colors. The positions of the hands are delicate and this is echoed in the delicacy of the pink flags fluttering at the bottom of the picture. Again references to propaganda posters are instantly apparent - all those flags recall the masses of Red Guards in Tian'anmen Square frantically waving their little red books. Cosmetics are a significant art of new commercial China. As in the West every department store has it floor devoted to a huge array of products. Advertising tells the Chinese this or that lotion or shampoo or lipstick will change their lives for the better. In "Red Ocean" this face of new China is elevated to cult status, as was Mao, far above and beyond the nationalist mass below.

Yue Minjun is a highly perceptive and intelligent artist. His wit is sharp. He addresses the question of reality. What constitutes reality? Is it the images we see, be they advertisements, propaganda or famous paintings? Does reality lie with those who produce the images or with those who consume them or somewhere else? He views the follies of the past and present and exposes them naked. He singles out vanity, regardless of era or place, and reduces it to its essential ridicule. Nothing escapes his humorous mockery, not even himself. All this he does with a smile and we all laugh.

London, Feb,2000

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Quoted from an introduction by Jim Supangkat (Art Critic and Theorist) --- catalogue of the exhibition "CP Open Biennale 2003", CP Foundation, Jakarta, Indonesia, 2003

Curator and art critic Li Xianting viewed the development of visual art in China within the 90s period as showing two major tendencies, termed as cynical realism and political pop. This analysis aroused various discussions and debates, since not all artists of the 90s appeared to show the two tendencies vividly. There were a number of artists who refused their works to be called as presenting cynical realism.

Reading art is indeed always hypothetical. This way of reading does not need empirical justifications since it is not about setting up a parameter to measure a certain reality in an absolute way. The reading of Li Xianting shows an attempt to define a general tendency which was related to the development of the situation in China. His notes specifically focused on the art development after 1989, which was a period of transitions in China, both in the social political scene and in the art world.

Among the artists observed by Li Xianting as presenting cynical realism, Yue Minjun has to be noted in particular to affirm Li Xianting's analysis. His works are the most obvious in showing cynical realism. Yue Minjun's works which present figures of people laughing together, strongly reflect cynicism. He seems to illustrate akind of pathetic hypocrisy in which there is a uniformity of progressive behavior. There are force and power that are capable to construct this terrible pathetic hypocrisy.

Yue Minjun's works - which are mostly paintings - reflect a social manipulation that involves intimidation. The reality offered by Yue Minjun does not need to be read as a reality which only happens in China under the communist regime. The social manipulation displayed by Yue Minjun is happening everywhere in the world. Such manipulations show a red line that is speaking on behalf of the society, such as "to achieve the society's goals," or "to defend the identity of the people." This act of representing the society becomes a justification to do an intimidation.

Through his paintings, Yue Minjun shows that violence does not only take from in authoritarianism which represses freedom and democracy. He wants to emphasize that violence also exists behind social manipulation which he views as bringing out a uniformity of behaviour that indicates pathetic hypocrisy. This violence is concealed and even invisible, done coldheartedly (in laughter) and discreetly.

Researches on social psychology give evidence that the main source of mass violence is often the act of behavior uniformity. This uniformity is based on chauvinistic nationalism, religious fanaticism, and ethnic identity which are responsible in raising out racism. The cause of this violence is a defense shield of ideology and social order. This justification is found to be started from family education , precisely when hatred behind chauvinistic nationalism, religious fanaticism, and ethnic identity are indoctrinated into children.

On the surface, Yue Minjun's paintings show a more humorous sense of cynicism. He appears to describe the comical outcome that happens in the behavior uniformity. Yet, behind this cynicism there is a bitter restlessness. The uniformity of behavior can lead to create war and terrorism, which are more cruel than repressive politics.