No Man’s Land

A friend has said to me，“Yue Minjun has painted some new works, but I can’t understand some of them, you know, those seeming to be only depicting a huge pile of ropes.” I got to see that painting later, which is enormous in size, depicting a fishing vessel, and the so called huge pile of ropes are nothing but the cables on board. No one would have recognized without noticing the signature that this is a work of Yue’s, for this piece is so different from his previous works that both the style and subject has been changed. I said to some young friends who have accompanied me to see Yue’s works: this painting is the New Doctor at Fishing Port; but they were confused: what do I mean by these words “New Doctor of the Fishing Port”? It’s a painting, produced by Cantonese painter Chen Yanning in 1973, was initially named Doctor A’Fang and renamed as New Doctor at Fishing Port when exhibited at the National Exhibition of Arts in 1974. The work has depicted a modest and stocky female “barefoot doctor”, who is carrying a medicine bucket (containing cool herbal tea) and a medicine box, helping the voyage-returning fishermen to upload medicine on board. Nevertheless, in Yue’s version of the New Doctor at Fishing Port, not only the subject of the “barefoot doctor” is missing, but also the figures (i.e. the people she’s serving)in the background, leaving us with the image of a vacant fishing vessel. The pile of cables is so eye-catching that no wonder people are easily impressed.

Yue has produced a series of such works, mostly adapted from the ones featuring the Cultural Revolution, but there are also prominent ones such as Founding Ceremony of P.R.C. and some other surrealistic works. In this originality-lacking age, does Yue’s way account for a kind of originality? Originality means a kind of creative relationship between the reproduced subject and object, which results in the meta-image, but not all the meta-images bear the significance to be used for originality. Meta-image is associated with the natural object, which is reproduced or reflected through certain techniques; the reproduction of originality and the development of techniques depend on each other, hence, once the technique becomes meaningless repetition, even the natural objects keeps changing, the reproduction process would still end up meaningless. Therefore, originality forsakes the reproduced subject and turn to object (not natural ones but images reproduced by machine, i.e. the second object). Theoretically, reproduction and appropriation of images don’t count for originality in the original sense, but bear a kind of newly-generated meaning. Yue’s initial idea is simple: most paintings have been produced through adding things to the surface, but few have tried subtracting things from it. He wants the feel similar to minimalism, the feel of subtracting. In fact, subtraction is not a novel method, for example, flatness in modern art is a kind of subtraction. The trend of flatness initially originated in impressionistic paintings, such as Manet’s Olympia, in which large blocks of contrasting colors and clear outlines are used while the depth of space is simplified. In Picasso’s cubist paintings, simplicity is given the fullest play and any further exploration would be abstraction. It is worth noting that the method of subtraction/simplification has taken nature as the object to strengthen the feeling of the subject, in other words, what has been faithfully reproduced is the “inner truth” of the subject’s feelings rather than the object; of course, the process of simplification will finally result in a subjective version, such as the cattle drawn by Picasso, which is so abstract that the original image can’t even be restored. The subtraction method employed by Yue is still different from simplification, for he doesn’t simplify the concrete object into some other pattern, but subtracts figures from existing works, for instance, A’Fang has been subtracted from New Doctor of the Fishing Port and Chairman Mao has been subtracted from Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan. The objects to be subtracted, in Yue’s case, are not the natural objects but the “existing ones”, what’s more, being historical at the same time. According to him, not all the subtractions are effective; only the ones recognized by the general public, especially the thematic paintings (painting with significant topics or backgrounds) can be sensed and recognized by people once certain content is subtracted.

Lacan has said, when a painter stares at an object, he’s also being stared back by the object. The truth is, in today’s art world, natural object no longer exists, though the objects we stare at also include the humanized nature and objectified humans; importantly, the objects have been neutralized on screen and we are staring at the images reproduced by machines. As a saying goes, nature does not speak, but an image does. Some concepts of modern art, such as imitation, appropriation, and characterization, all indicate the meaning-generation process during reproducing images in different contexts. Image appropriation has dual meanings: on the one hand, the new context causes the change of meaning, but on the other hand, the original meaning is still retained. This is similar to the difference between installation and sculpture: the material of the sculpture only possess its own properties, but for the appropriation of an existing item in an installation, the original function of the existing item won’t be lost. There are various types of appropriation, among which two ways are the most commonly adopted: one is direct appropriation of an image, such as Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe, and the other is the conversion, combination or collage of images. With the first method, the meaning of an appropriated image is changed as the context has been alerted; with the second method, in addition to the meaning of the image being changed, the created work itself would generate some new meaning.

We shall then observe Yue’s works based on above analysis. The essence of Yue’s works is also appropriation, though he has disguised them from being recognized as appropriation through the use of paining, for generally speaking, appropriation adopts or imitates the effect of machine reproduction and bears an apparent non-painting trait. For an audience unfamiliar with the appropriated object, the work of Yue is nothing more than a traditional painting, because such viewer can’t see the relationship between a fishing vessel with a pile of cables and the New Doctor at Fishing Port. In general, appropriation doesn’t require the audience to have before-hand knowledge concerning the appropriated object, for the purpose of appropriation is not to reproduce the object. However, Yue’s works have appropriated historically renowned paintings, which still can be recognized through collective memory even it has been modified. In the case of Duchamp’s Mona Lisa with Mustache, it is when people could first commonly recognize Mona Lisa, and only so could the meaning of the “mustache” be generated. Among Yue’s works, some have not been adapted from renowned paintings that are familiar to us, for instance, in the case of surrealistic paintings, though he has subtracted the subjects, they would still appear to people as surrealistic works, nothing more than the reproductions of surrealism. But the appropriations of other renowned paintings, though not in a throughout way, carry out entirely different meanings.

Yue has been originally engaged in political pop art, but his previous works were by no means related to politics, yet his current works are indeed political, though historically political. In fact, Yue had no political purposes or motivations when producing these works. To realize the intention of subtraction, he had many choices of renowned paintings, but finally chose the “thematic paintings”, because “only these works can be clearly remembered by people”. In fact, these memories can be divided into two types: a people’s collective memory and a professional memory, but it is the personal memory of the artist himself that strings these memories together; first of all, he identifies which “thematic painting” can emerge from history according to his own recollection. In China, the painting enjoying the strongest collective memory is no doubt Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan, which was produced during the Cultural Revolution as a result of political struggle, yet enjoying widespread popularity among Chinese people, being printed as many as 900 million pieces and turning out to be an absolute household name. Other works of this kind include the pre-Cultural-Revolution ones such as Founding Ceremony of the P.R.C. and War in the Tunnels, which are well-known far beyond the professional art field due to political propagandas. The other type of works, such as New Doctor at Fishing Port, Herding for Motherland, and Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland would only stir up memories among people in the art field; Yue has experienced that era thus has indepth memories of these works. As a matter of fact, the second type of works is also political for that was indeed a political age, just in the way that modern artworks can be non-political or commercial even it has adopted a political or mainstream thematic subject. Of course, the memory concerning the Cultural Revolution is unique in its own way. Just as a folk saying goes, “Eight operas for eight million people; the Tale of Red Lanterns is performed everyday”, the fact that the artistic memory just concentrated on a few pieces of works symbolizes the dictatorship over culture in that time period. However, history is to fade away from memory somhow, and when it reappeared, official operas (even tragedies) somehow become comedies. From this perspective, the works of Yue at least contain meanings in two respects. Firstly, history has faded away from memory. The subtraction of figures is symbolic; without the figures, the background is still complete, but if the background is subtracted, the remaining figures would not be able to form a complete picture even if they still provoke memory. The figures are the subjects of these paintings, or the major undertakers of the painting’s meaning, therefore, subtraction of the figures also indicate the elimination of the primary meanings in these works. Is this a intentional memory loss or the natural fading away of these objects from our memory? Realism always tend to provoke painful memory, which is to say, people’s most profound experiences of realistic art are always associated with the most painful memories. This is the case with not only personal experiences but also collective experiences. Although the paintings produced during the Cultural Revolution are mostly presented in a brightly way with people singing, dancing and living happy lives, the revolution itself was a ten-year disastrous misery. Any individual who has experienced that particular time period would not feel blissful when seeing such works, but feel tormented and painful according to one’s own experience and memory.

In Yue’s view, he has been focusing on the form of painting. For instance, he challenges the principles of painting through the processes of adding to subtracting. Actually, the addition to these paintings is techniques rather than objects; it is through adopting certain techniques that the reproduction of the realness is being realized, and then gain others’ recognition of such realness. Works like New Doctor at Fishing Port attracted great attention at the time due to the skillful techniques employed. The appearance, use of light, brush strokes and compositional structure not only create a harmonious and glamorous painting, but it also marks a technical breakthrough in the history of Chinese oil painting. This breakthrough has revealed the earlier shortage in techniques and the general repression caused by cultural dictatorship. Yet, it is also the techniques that have disguised the reality; in that age, be it propaganda or faithful illustration, no one would explore the truthfulness of the depiction. Behind this external imagery are the cruelty, general poverty, shortage of medicinal care, suppression on intellectuals and false representation of reality. When the Culture Revolution was over, works like Father that reflect upon reality appeared, but the paintings created during the Cultural Revolution are still labeled as “red light”. Abd history hasn’t been settled, it’s probably because political propaganda is unsettled. One can never cross the same river twice; when history presents itself once again , as is in the writing of modern art history and the frenetic pricing of artworks, it is made beautiful and glorified, “all that are in the past will eventually become beautiful memories”. Yue’s works are represebtations of history in a unique way: he reproduces history partially, subtracting the central figures as if history has transformed in memory. The figures are the undertakers of politics, and what has been forgotten is exactly the severity of politics hidden behind the externals; it seems that the remaining scene has lost its meaning, appearing as any normal landscape painting, even though the scenery had been created to serve a special thematic purpose.

That was also a time period when images were scarced, and painting became an effective method for propaganda; just as the fact that 800 million people in China were all watching the designated few Beijing opera programs was not because they were any good, but there were simply nothing else to watch. Even clearly knowing that the paintings are falsely representing reality, we still esteemed them as renowned paintings because we stressed on aesthetics (technical skills), and we do not know about the truthfulness being depicted in these paintings. After the Cultural Revolution, Scar Art and Rural Realism became popular, allowing us to see the truthfulness of arts for the first time while the glamorous cover-up techniques were soon forgotten by people. However, as society develops rapidly, an era of images has arrived, with machines producing images that could portray better likeness of reality in TV, photography, journalism, and advertisements among other industries. And the likeness created by painting once more becomes the result of techniques, only different in that it’s a kind of exquisite simulated technique. Since the 1990’s, painting has fallen in the trend of imagry: be it pop art or vulgarity, neoclassic or new academic, direct reproduction or appropriation of images, or figurative and portrait painted from photographs, painting has fallen as affiliated to images. In this tidal wave of image reproduction, it can be said that Yue has gone against the tide, dismantling such reproduction while old photos and historical painting are reproduced in Richer’s style. Another critical point is that reproduction is associated with commercial values; history (old photos, historical paintings) is reproduced as political symbols and sold as products, resulting in the historical connotation being forgotten during the commercialization in society. Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan has received new attention thanks to its appearance in auction, but the figure in the painting has been reproduced in various styles and evolved forms in the so-called modern art. Yue’s “renowned painting” Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan has also adopted the method of reproduction, but the figure is subtracted, indicating the ineffectiveness of reproduction or the defiance against commercialization; that scene of the empty scenery is seemingly like the absence of history.

Indeed, it requires memory and thinking to appreciate Yue’s works; the way we recognize and inquire about history, the way he presents the fragmented history to us, are both the results of that too much history has been forgotten. Essentially, his presentation is not an act to follow any style, but a kind of duplication that allows history to be relived. History is not responsible for the revivals of historical official peras in comedies, they are mere needs of today’s world; such rebirth is due to some voluntary reasons and reasons that simply can’t be helped.

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