Yue Minjun

Born in 1962, Yue Minjun is one of the most famous avant garde artists of modern China. Yue had joined the art field rather late after having worked in the oil industry for some time. In the early 1990s Yue Mingjun joined the artistic community at Yuan Ming Yuan which was always kept under surveillance by the officials in China. While in Yuan Ming Yuan, Yue Minjun developed his style of painting which involved the use of his own portrait in an animated laughter, using paints in such a way that the portraits looked plastic and unreal.

Yue has later started making sculptures too of the same laughing man’s face. Yue like some of the contemporary artists of China was appreciated by the west and sold more works abroad than within China.
In 1999, Yue Minjun was selected by Harald Szeemann for the Venice Biennale. Yue has later participated in 5th Shanghai Biennale, Art Beatus in Vancouver and many other shows abroad.


His most famous piece till date is the “Execution” which was auctioned at the highest price any Chinese work ever fetched.