Memory Evoked by Scenery

In the midnight of Feb 2nd, 1933, Lu Xun, having been so uneasy, wrote down an mournful essay, , for 5 young writers including Bai Mang, Rou Shi and others, who were murdered in the same day two year ago. Titled as “For Forgotten Memories”, the essay opens with Lu Xun’s reason for such a writing: “It’s not for other things. It’s just because grief and indignation never stops intruding my heart during the past two years. I really wish I could escape from it and relax. To be direct, I was to forget them at all.”

The five young men in the essay are not Lu Xun’s close friends. Why can’t he stop thinking about their death after two years? This is surely decided by Lu Xun’s sympathetic personality. They are comrades, though not close friends. Not mention that Bai Mang and Rou Shi had some contacts with him before. Dead is dead, but those memories exits. It is to recall the memories, not to forget. It is just an ironic expression and an emphasis of memorial tone to name it as “For Forgotten Memories”. So, at the ending of the essay, he said: “Night is long, and so is the road. I’d better forget it and be silent. But I know, even it is not by me, they will be remembered and talked about again in the future…”

Yue Minjun often talked about this essay of Lu Xun while he was discussing with me about his Scenery series. This makes me dating back to the stage of Lu Xun, and analyzing his Scenery series by connection with a broader background of mordern Chinese history. As we all know, Yue Minjun’s success in contemporary Chinese art is not by Scenery style first, but his creation of a laughing self-image in a proper time. The critics and analysis of this image used to concentrate on the betray of authoritative society, i.e. letting out dissatisfaction toward politics and society by self-sacarism. In fact, this is just an explanation in certain period. If we broaden our view and connect it with the whole modern history of China, we will find that the self-creation of Yue Minjun implies more the questioning to the value of life in a modern way.

Humanbeing, as the main body of existence, is rarely talked about in traditional Chinese culture. Everywhere is King’s land, Everybody is King’s subject. Orthdox confucianism shows an universal thought, but ignores the richer content of humanism. So-called “Everyone should serve his obligation, vassal or loard, father or son[ This is the central idea of conficianism, and coming from the three cardinal guides (ruler guides subject, father guides son and husband guides wife) and the five constant virtues (benevolence;righteousness, propriety, wisdom and fidelity)]”, which was used as dominate value to rule and maintain the society. While constructing seemingly harmonious situation, it has trampled upon people hardly, especially the fate of under-level people. Just because of this, standing on the basis of modernism, Lu Xun found that the history of old China is only the family history of nobility and surprised by the phrase “eat people[ It is a quotation from Lu Xun’s essay “the Diary of the Insane”. It says: “ I can see only the phrase of ‘eat people’in all the books…” ]”, therefore making a proposal of “human-establishmen”. It is just because of such core of “human-establishment” that the culture enlightenment since “5.4 movement” has acquired a modern content beyond historical repetition. Although the enlightenment of the Lu Xuns had openned a window of conscious for the lower-level of society and waked them up, the struggle still evolved into a repeated fight between social classes because of the inertia effect of history. Therefore, as the main body of existence, human has still been depressed by one and another social change, and it is still the desire of power, of control and ownership that was evoked through class struggle. In fact, even the re-enlightenment in 1980s hadn’t escape from the tempertation of power and the shadow of class. I remembered clearly a metaphor of Nietzsche loved and quoted by many avant-garde arts in 80’s, which compares the relationship between shephard and sheep with the nobolity of self and difference from commen people. Such enlightenment thoughts developed out a value model of elites, and somehow shielded the content of humaneness liberty, therefore leads directly to the inside collapse of it.

Yue Minjun appeared right at such time, i.e. after 1989. This is a coinscidence of time, but more coinscidences hides in the growth of him, which is fate. If we can say that the special historical situation in 1989 has made him doubt about the 1980s culture enlightenment generally, then his unique experiences of growth has provided him a different angle to see the problem of life. Yue was born in 1960s. Although the same as the last generation, this generation of artists have gone through the class struggle and the betray of Cultural Revolution, they still cannot really feel it because of the age difference. However, the special experience of working in Oil Field helped him to feel so many joys and sorrows of the littles. All those makes him away from the change of society, and care more about personal fate. Those laughing self-Images created by him are more the escape of self than the betray against real society. The important thing is not laughing but people. It is Yue Minjun who found a way of self-release for the littles in gigantic social movement. This is just like Lu Xun, who gives “the method of spiritual success” to “Q”[ A figur in Lu Xun’s novel “the Story of Q”, who is humble, silly, innocent and clumsy. ], doesn’t mean sarcasm but sympathy to his miserable life. Yue Minjun armed himself by laughing “cynical”[ Quoted from Li Xianting’s essay.], not to play with life, but to release himself from tragic fate.

Scenery series follows such line also. Around 1996, Yue Minjun started a new expression besides laughing self-image, which is the Scenery series known by people later. This is a group of works dealing with historical paintings, including classic western masterpieces and paintings of Modern Chinese history. It is interesting that Yue’s way of manipulation is neigher regid reproduction nor crazy destroy, but the delete of main elements, i.e. human, and the remaining of original backgrounds. We can explain this series with many post-modern concepts. Indeed, Yue borrows some post-modern methods, such as Appropriation, piecing-together, replacement and parody, etc. However, despite of these methods, based on idea, we will find the questioning about human by Yue Minjun is not weaken in Scenery series, but even stronger and profounding. The same as Lu Xun’s enantiosis in his “For Forgotten Memories”, Yue Minjun removes those familiar figures in Scenery series, which immediately creates a strange situation and evokes us to rethink how many absent people were forgotten at all beneath the surface of crowded historical flow.

Looking for the missing one: this is the true meaning of Yue’s expression in Scenery series. In fact, there lies the intendency of Scenery series already in his first laughing self-images. I can still remember that the first work of Yue shows a group of boring young people playing around with a background of Tian An Men. This is such a direct expression by putting a ground of silly-laughing young guys under the background of Chinese royal symbol—Tian An Men. Even though, Yue still cannot let it go, because power cannot be knock down by some young guys’ playing around, and common people cannot get position and respect by a chance visit on Tian An Men. This might be the thing that is bothering Yue. Extreme joy begets sorrow and sorrow brings these unique empty Scenery series.

This series goes into our view by two lines: one is of art history, more exactly, of our study of wester art history; another is of social history, i.e. a piece of social history that we really experienced. In the line of art history, Yue adapted some familiar wester materpieces, deleted the figures one by one and created a sudden intention, to oblige us refreshing the knowledge of these classic works. In fact, our study of western culture during the past hundred of years, including the acceptance of wester oil paintings, are all based on Humanism. Yue Minjun takes the opsite direction. It’s surely not to dispel, but to warn us to rethink about the hard experiences of studying western culture on the stand of viewpoint today. Same rethinking has been brought into the background of modern Chinese history. The social revolution and self-reconstruction of modern China meant to establish a new society without depression, create a so-called new personality without selfish desire. However, after the tides of different movements, it is still power, violence and injustice floating out of the waves. When Yue erased away all those figures and events in history, leaving only constructions and scenes as ideological symbols, we will find out that all is still marking time. And when he compares western art history and modern Chinese history together, I even realized: it is not those figures in wetern materpieces that is absent, but our historical progress shows unimaginable shortness of the knowledge and understanding towards human.

Art cannot change anything, but it is such unchangeable reality that makes people resist. Lu Xun’s “For Forgotten Memories” is a cry in silence, while Yue Minjun’s Scenery series is also an accusation against conventions. Who can say Lu Xun’s proposal of “Human-establishment” will lose its meaning just because it hasn’t been realized at last? The access of thoughts is not up to being effective or not, but to the deep mark it leaves. Just like “For Forgotten Memories”, without the embedding of this essay into the frame of history, maybe really nobody might talk about it later. In fact, the meanning of Yue’s Scenery series just lies in here, not up to his presentation of a series historical events without figures, but to his creation of a special “announcement of person lost” according to these events. It is just by the reference of this announcement that the history and people can still remember it even after long time, and find out that there used to be a group of people searching around in such a time.

2007.2.26 in Tongzhou District

(Scene- Yue Minjun, Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House, 2009)