Free and Leisure-10 (2003) by Yue MinjunToday Art Museum
Laughing...laughing...and keep on laughing until it starts hurting. Until you can't stand it anymore!
It seems like an idyllic situation: a group of people having fun during an outdoor swim. But do you really feel comfortable?
Free and Leisure-10 (2003) by Yue MinjunToday Art Museum
The faces, all alike, are the artist's self-portraits. Yue Minjun, with great self-irony, was not so gracious in depicting his own image.
The hints of baldness, slouching bodies, the skin of anomalous pink. This is not exactly "ideal beauty".
Free and Leisure-10 (2003) by Yue MinjunToday Art Museum
Their ugliness contrasts with the beauty of the environment, inspired by Renaissance landscapes, or Rousseau's exotic settings.
Maybe that's what the artist is laughing about: the antithesis between the ideal world portrayed by the media and the ugly reality. The mouths are wide open in a burst of laughter like a black hole. Laughing until you can't stand it anymore.
Free and Leisure-10 (2003) by Yue MinjunToday Art Museum
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