Wrath of the People's Liberation Army that is not allowed to laugh? After China banned Li Haoshi, it besieged Yue Minjun as an "artist who humiliated the army"

【2023.5.24 China 】

Wrath of the People's Liberation Army that is not allowed to laugh? After China banned Li Haoshi, it besieged Yue Minjun as an "artist who humiliated the army"

"Good style, able to win battles... Now even the People's Liberation Army can't laugh?" A talk show actor Li Haoshi (House) was accused of insulting and belittling the People's Liberation Army in mid-May in China. turmoil. Just a week after the Li Haoshi incident, the 61-year-old internationally renowned contemporary Chinese artist Yue Minjun was also accused by Chinese public opinion of anger for his "Laughing" series created in the 2000s, which depicts the People's Liberation Army smiling Laughter's works are suspected of "humiliating the army", which once again set off a new wave of siege in the Chinese community.

Yue Minjun's "disgrace to the army" incident continued from the talk show Li Haoshi incident on May 13 this year. Li Haoshi (House), a popular comedian under the "Xiaoguo Culture", which runs a talk show in China, used Xi Jinping's slogan to encourage the PLA to describe wild troops in a performance on May 13. Dog, I didn't expect to set off a siege on the Chinese Internet, accusing Li Haoshi of insulting the People's Liberation Army, and the storm spread and expanded. In the end, on the 15th, Xiaoguo Culture was fined more than 13.35 million RMB, and 1.32 million RMB of performance income was also confiscated. Li Haoshi was also personally investigated, which turned into a comprehensive official rectification of talk show performances.

The incident of Li Haoshi is still turmoil, and the "blasphemy fire" of the Chinese Internet community has ignited Yue Minjun's controversy again - China's WeChat public account "Kunlun Ce Research Institute" published an article signed by Yang Zhaoyou on May 19: <This is an organized incident of humiliating the army and anti-communism! 〉, the full text cuts straight to the point and accuses artist Yue Minjun of his solo exhibition at the "Harmony Art Museum" in Shunde, Guangdong:

"The He Art Museum in Shunde, Guangdong, even exhibited such ugly works of insulting the leader and the people's soldiers as treasures for the audience. Isn't this an organized and planned anti-communist activity against the army?"

The works of Yue Minjun named are mainly his Laughter series created in the 2000s. In his works, such as "Sea, Land and Air" and "Revolutionary", the portraits of the characters are all squinting and laughing of the People's Liberation Army or the police expression. Yang Zhaoyou, the author of the article, believes that these images vilify the PLA and insult the heroes; however, the article does not elaborate on the theory of "how to uglify", and only criticizes it emotionally:

"We only know that 72 years ago, the Kuomintang reactionaries once portrayed the Communist Party and the People's Army as a beast with green faces and fangs, out of anti-communist and anti-people needs. Unexpectedly, more than 70 years after the founding of the Republic, in the land of the people, under the jurisdiction of the government What’s more, an oil painting that smears the People’s Army appears in such an art gallery, and it’s even exhibited confidently!”

In fact, this is not a new article. The statement about Yue Minjun's "suspected humiliation of the army" has been circulated on WeChat and other platforms in the past few years, but for some reason it did not cause a bigger disturbance. And the "Kunlun Policy Research Institute" that published this article claims to be a think tank group for national policy strategy consultation in name, but in the evaluation of the Chinese people, some people support such remarks that are extremely defending the country, but some people observe the content and find that it is "Left The ultra-left old-school line of "Stick Remaining Old". Although the actual influence is not high, it can occasionally cause ripples on the Chinese social network. This time, Yue Minjun ignited another fire in the aftermath of the Li Haoshi incident.

Yue Minjun, born in 1962, is a contemporary artist from Heilongjiang, China. Later, he was mainly active in Beijing. He is famous for his self-portrait series with "squinting and laughing" expressions; In 2007, he was selected as the cover figure of "Time" magazine, and he can be regarded as an internationally renowned contemporary Chinese artist.

The subtle thing is that in October 2007, Yue Minjun's oil painting "Execution" was auctioned at Sotheby's London for about 2.93 million euros, setting a record for the auction price of Chinese contemporary art—but this work was actually sold in 1989. The Tiananmen incident is the background, and the people who are about to shoot (the gun is not drawn in their hands) and will be executed in the picture all wear exaggerated smiles, as a kind of irony and reflection. The background story of this painting has not been recorded in Chinese materials because it "involves sensitivity".

The 61-year-old Yue Minjun is still active in China. In recent years, he has held solo exhibitions in Guangdong, Yunnan and other places. In 2020, he also exhibited a new series of laughing. The face turned into blooming flowers, but the exaggerated smile remained unchanged.

The work accused of insulting the army is "Sea, Land, and Air" created in 2007. Three "self-portraits" that symbolize the three armed forces (a symbol that Yue Minjun has always used in his creations), wearing military caps and smiling with squinted eyes as a salute, have not been seen for a long time. The painting in question, did not expect to be accused of insulting the People's Liberation Army more than ten years later. Many critical opinions on the Chinese Internet believe that Yue's series of paintings are "uglified and deformed", but most of them are intuitive feelings without an understanding of the creative context:

"#越敏君# insulting the PLA under the guise of art, is it different from Xiaoguo insulting the PLA under the guise of entertainment? It is also very shameful and must be severely punished!" "#越敏君#The things he draws are all based on himself It’s a template, the painting style is too weird, it makes me uncomfortable and I can’t appreciate it.”

"#越敏君# First of all, whoever told me that this is art, I am in a hurry with whoever, painting has a thought content that you want to express, just tell me what these messy shapes represent, what does he want to express?"

In addition, the Laughter series also painted something like the "Devil Horn", and Lei Feng, a model character admired by the Chinese Communist Party, was also drawn as a member of the Laugh series. Army atmosphere.

But just like the Li Haoshi incident, not all Chinese people are happy to see the situation develop like this. There have also been counterattacks from netizens before, and the reverse meat search reported Li Haoshi’s Weibo account at the beginning, which also set off a public opinion war between different opinions. This time the Yue Minjun incident, there are also people who hold the opposite opinion, thinking that it has gone too far:

"Speechless, are you a frog in a well? Seeing something jumps up and down like a thrill... Read more books, if you can't, go online more..."

"Is it illegal to paint the People's Liberation Army laughing?"

Is Yue Minjun's work really intended to "humiliate the army"? Like many artists, Yue Minjun himself did not give a clear explanation for his paintings. In a news interview in 2021, Yue Minjun answered the reporter as follows:

I have been painting Laughter for many years, but it is still not over. Yue Minjun also asked himself, but he feels that the problem of using laughter to explore is still unresolved. The outside world's understanding of laughter, some people think that he is facing this sad world with a bright smile, some people think that he is metaphorizing and mocking many realities, some people think that he expresses taboo-like pleasure with slapstick laughter, some people think A smile is spring, a hearty laugh, the whole world has become a spring, he readily accepts and respects all these interpretations, and continues to interpret his answers in his own unique way.

This is an exclusive interview published by China's "Artron Art Network" in January 2021. At that time, it mainly discussed Yue Minjun's new painting series launched in 2020, replacing squinting and laughing characters with blooming flowers, and Yue Minjun's expression became " The change of "Laughing Flower Man" has its own creative ideas:

"Blooming flowers are beautiful, but this kind of beauty seems to be floating on the surface. There may be something hidden and hidden behind it, making it impossible for us to see the world and our current situation." For many years, Yue Minjun has always used his His paintings express the problems behind the reality he sees, which are related to society and culture.

Viewers have different opinions about the thinking intention expressed in this section of "beautiful surface, hidden backside". By May 24th, a large number of pictures and texts criticizing Yue Minjun had emerged on Chinese Internet communities including Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin. As of noon on the 24th, Yue Minjun has not yet made any further public responses. Whether it will evolve into a heavy punishment or ban like Li Haoshi in the future remains to be seen. However, in the current atmosphere of Chinese public opinion, there seems to be no room for "fault tolerance"—even Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of the Global Times who spoke for Li Haoshi at the time, is now listed as a target of public opinion.

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pieces! 〉, the full text cuts straight to the point and accuses artist Yue Minjun of his solo exhibition at the "Harmony Art Museum" in Shunde, Guangdong: