Oil on canvas

219.5 x 199 cm. 86 1/2 x 78 3/8 in.

Signed in Pinyin on bottom left
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Asia

Declaration of Independence in the Era of Idols
As the main pioneer of “cynical realism”, Yue Minjun has created many portrait paintings brimming with vitality. These works have furthermore become some of the most sought-after paintings on the market. Yue transforms the characters into symbols, portraying the common suffering and loneliness shared among people living in the same era and expressing the thoughts and aspirations of each individual in modern society.
The Revival of Free-spiritedness
In 1996, Yue Minjun began creating his Manipulation series, a highly creative artistic experiment that continues to the present day. Utilizing Adobe Photoshop, a computer image processing editor that had recently been released at the time, he meddled with the images and altered their original properties through the conspicuous use of artificial “manipulation”, creating forms and styles that differed from his previous practice in order to explore the nature of art itself.
In reality, the distorted or even blurred characters in this series represent the artist's rebellion against his own iconic “laughing man” image. He takes concepts from everyday life — praise and irony, laughter and a sense of loss — and transforms them into the frictional traces of countless points and lines on the image. This not only reveals the alienated state of existence of every individual in society, but even more depicts the existential meaning of individual uniqueness.
The Revolution of Individual Will
Yue Minjun's Manipulation series is an important part of his artistic career, but the works rarely appear together at exhibitions or art markets. This means that they possess high artistic and collection value. We will be presenting works from this series this autumn.
The painting currently being auctioned is entitled Manipulation-16 and was created in 2004. The artist uses the “labor hero” image of the Cultural Revolution to reflect today's political and social environment. The character's broad smile echoes the quintessential “laughing man” image of the artist's past, a character which was an iconic symbol of that era. The artist uses it to symbolize the highly materialistic living conditions of individuals today. Using smudged strokes, he shatters this seemingly cheerful surface phenomenon, revealing all the sense of loss and anxiety that is hidden behind it.
In this painting, the artist gives up the bright colors and character gestures that were characteristic of his earlier works. Instead, he uses a monochromatic color scheme to evoke people's memories of a particular era, thereby forming an aesthetic experience. This technique challenges the concepts of cultural standardization and homogenization in the context of globalization, imbuing the work with a strong sense of self-awareness and a spirit of independence.

Price estimate:
HKD: 750,000 - 950,000
USD: 95,500 - 121,000

Auction Result:
HKD : --