Smile-ism No. 4

Series Title

Smile-ism Series

Artist

Yue Minjun (Chinese, b. 1962)

Date

2006

Medium

Lithograph

Dimensions

Image : 42 1/2 x 30 1/2 in. (1.1 m x 77.47 cm)
Frame : 4 ft. 6 1/2 in. x 41 1/2 in. (1.4 x 1.1 m)

Credit Line

Hope College Collection

Object Number

2015.18

Label

Beijing-based Yue Minjun was associated with the Cynical Realist art movement in China during the 1990s and early 2000s. He is best known for paintings and prints that depict caricatures of himself in different guises but always laughing. Some critics have interpreted these images as commentaries on the contradictions between the difficulties many ordinary Chinese face in their daily lives and the relentlessly upbeat portrayal of life in Chinese government propaganda and commercial advertising campaigns. Yue himself has expressed a more philosophical reading of his art: “All problems can be solved with laughter—they simply disappear without causing any heartache. This is how one may attain extraordinary peacefulness within one’s heart.”