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Yue Minjun — Backyard Garden
Yue Minjun

Backyard Garden

2005

Yue Minjun's *Backyard Garden* is an oil on canvas work featuring his signature motif of identical, self-portrait figures rendered in vivid, exaggerated laughter set against a lush garden backdrop. The painting's bold, saturated colors and repetitive grinning figures create an unsettling tension between the cheerfulness of the scene and an underlying sense of absurdity or emptiness. Rooted in the Cynical Realism movement, Minjun's work critiques social conformity and the performative nature of happiness in contemporary Chinese society.

Medium
oil on canvas

🔨 Auction Lot

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale

March 9, 2018

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About this work

Yue Minjun, Backyard Garden, 2005

Yue Minjun's *Backyard Garden* is an oil on canvas work featuring his signature motif of identical, self-portrait figures rendered in vivid, exaggerated laughter set against a lush garden backdrop. The painting's bold, saturated colors and repetitive grinning figures create an unsettling tension between the cheerfulness of the scene and an underlying sense of absurdity or emptiness. Rooted in the Cynical Realism movement, Minjun's work critiques social conformity and the performative nature of happiness in contemporary Chinese society.

Medium
oil on canvas
Year
2005
Seen at
Phillips, New York, London, Hong Kong

Related themes

Figurative Painting, Male Artist, Cynical Realism, Chinese Contemporary Art, Garden Scene, Chinese Artist, Contemporary Artist, Figurative Art, Late 20th Century, Bright Colors, Vibrant Colors, Oil on Canvas, Satirical Mood

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