Yue Minjun - China Avant-Garde: The Farber Collection London Friday, October 12, 2007 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from the artist

  • Catalogue Essay

    Definition of "self-image" has been the theme of China's contemporary art since 1990s. For individual Chinese artists, approval of the worship for "self-image" has become kind of trademark recognized internationally and nationally. The image of Yue Minjun (the new idol) has been widely accepted by the media and the public, and has met the need for creating new heroes today by magazines with his extraordinary self-knowledge of contemporary times. Exhibitions of Yue Minjun's "self-image" are, at the same time, a display of market strategies and development of public communicative skills. The altering of the occasion does not shift people's attention to these events or to the understanding of the events; instead, it concentrates on promoting the image more widely, deeply and persistently. Even in Yue Minjun's sculptures, the special combination of forms is an outstanding technique in publicizing his image.

    Modern terracotta soldiers and horses begun in 2000 “strives to incorporate certain historic energy into the creation of 'self-image'.” Against this, the value in terms of culture and tourism embodied in the "terracotta soldiers and horses" arouses a general expectation from the outside that the maker should be a follower of individual cultural heroism. This differs from the approach of artists such as Damien Hirst or Marc Quinn who have found particular ways of dealing with feelings through their personal, concrete and crazy understanding of today's material world. The outside regards their insight and feelings as symbolic of personal cultural heroism, whereas for Yue Minjun, ‘tradition’ has become an important method of perceiving personal cultural heroism of contemporary Chinese artists.
    L. Lin, Yue Minjun, at http://www.yueminjun.com/en/biography/bio06.html

504

Terracotta Warriors No. 6

2006
Bronze (in two parts).
113 1/4 x 24 x 18 in. (287.7 x 61 x 45.7 cm) overall.
Incised “Yue Minjun No 6 2006” and numbered of 25 on the reverse of base. This work is from an edition of 25.

Estimate
£60,000 - 80,000 

Sold for £168,000

China Avant-Garde: The Farber Collection

The Farber Collection
13 October 2007, 7pm
London