Thank you for visiting The Best Artist of Chinese YuanYaomin!

	The Best Artist of Chinese:

Yaomin Yuan:Figurine, evil and third image

Dao Zi

Figurine, is the ancient pottery or wooden puppet for burial, such as figurines of soldier and horse In Qin Dynasty Evil, means pretty and coquettish, such as charming and bewitching. Tang Dynasty 's Xuanying in his 'all is from sound and meaning 'volume 1quoted 'three barns ':"evil is coquettish." In ' jade chapter. Female part 'there is: "evil is charming." Three countries Wei Dynasty's Caozhi said in his 'the beauty chapter’: "A beauty is evil and leisure, picking mulberry on the fork road." Song Dynasty's Sushi said in his 'peony's description": "perhaps this flower has been found for three hundred years. It's very beautiful and charming, so that it deserves observing and praising." Using 'figurine' as a noun and 'evil ' as predictive made up of the visual linguistic image of Yaomin Yuan' s recent oil paintings, and the two images adapt to this essay's unique expression code.

'Who's the Fair Lady' series. 'Variegation' series and 'Red Walls and Gray Tiles' are Yaomin Yuan's works after his 'Vogue' series and 'Dragon and Phoenix' (1995). They are new research works, which persistently observe history of female culture and existence of reality in feminism. In the three new series, the female painter transfers and combines the power, stagnancy and apathy of Qin's figurines with the prettiness. Charm and even voluptuousness of the bonny girls, and so the bisexual ' third image' is generated. The relation between 'figurine' and 'evil' is wide off the mark, both on sexual character and on cultural connotation. Qin' s figurine is for worship; it is an imaginary replacement about martyrdom of the Qin Empire's feudalistic pragmatism. What ' evil ' stands for in reality---the bonny girl, is simulate movement of female's virilism in which women's sexual role of propagation, erotic ideology and fantasy. Pregnant fostering stops 'and transfers to simulating men's virility and activity. Gaining rights by means of her opponent's (men's) tutelary colour change her weak compliant status and gender her social role.

However, just on the difference of the two contravening binary, Yaomin Yauan shows her witty feminist introspection and delicate mould talent. First it is sculpture or the mould factor with sculptural sentiment that organic unites and balances the stiff brawn of bonny girls、exaggerated simulating action and the realistic、pottery and stiff bodies of Qin's figurines into a kind of unisonsentiment. The sentiment's dissolved objects simultaneously contain all kinds of absurd relations such as femininity and virility in aesthetics、transsexuals and transvestism in sexual psychology、sexual identity and social identity in feminism、oppression and liberation in politics.

The emergency of the works' significance relies on the idea's induction, and the idea's being shown depends on 'the third image' which the works offer-a kind of mixed code and strange image generated from the combination of 'figurine' and 'evil'. Here we can unscrupulously say "head of Qin's figurine and Madona's body ". The inquiry of "who's a fairy maiden?" makes our reading and comprehension travel from 'the third image' in the works' vision back to meditation of women's substantial and the ultimate care for feminist.

The classical interpretation of the word 'a fairy maiden' is with water, with uncle. In 'Explaining words part of water' there is :"fairy, means lucid"; the deepening meaning is kind、beautiful、benign, just as "fairy and gentleman, their statures are the same." ('Poet. Cao Style. Culver'), "fairy odor comes with time, remnant redolence gone with wind." (Luji's 'travel on the dyke') "Be fairy not lewd, what's the reason for peduncle?"('Chu's words 'eulogy for orange'). In Chinese Feudalistic patriarchy society, "a fairy maiden" was paternity’s palavering object in society with male center, and so became the cognate name and object of "loyal heroine". The object is associated with thousands years of women's being humiliated and oppressed history. In the modernizing procedure of women's liberation, Chinese women all along act as dual difficult roles and worry about it. What should they do with traditional women's identity-what "a fairy maiden" means? Betray it or critically return to "natural maternity"? Yaomin Yuan's works are just disputation and covering to the great complex; like "the third image" she has drawn, the sexual role with "fairy odor" is discarded completely, but "head of Qin's figurine" is controlling their simulate movement. The realistic result of women's liberation has generated "free female" who seek characteristic and enjoyment and "female strong figure" that seeks her own cause. Substantially the two kinds are both "women in men's dress", identifying with traditional male role, and are still modernizing copies of 'fairy maiden'. The 'virility' shown by those simulate actions, pose、physique is kind of 'acting' or 'imitating' male role after all, expecting to 'enter' the patriarchy Rococo words; it can't make up of subversive threatening to the system-even "latent subversion"(said by Liaowen). The whole society's cultural spirit、ideology of chaste morality are still manipulated by 'head of Qin's figurine'. Simon Povoir said in her 'the second sex-female': As long as she "still struggles to degenerate to be equal to a man, a woman will never become a creator." That is to say the difference between two sexes is both relative and substantial. If women fell unworthy because of 'phallic admiration', just as Floyd identified she will get into "Electra complex" and can not change her compliant status; neither can she be the host of creating human's culture. Therefore, the image of 'head of Qin's figurine' latently contains the female painter's discovery of the history and realistic situation of women's role. On one hand the flourish libidinal flowers bloom wantonly, and become the main consuming object and content of 'sexual economy', leaving 'liberation' and 'equality' to be inane matter. On the other hand, in the frame of men's authority with the style of 'red walls and gary tiles' women's sexual role is still defined by stage actions with the 'three circumferences' criterion. This is both history contextual embarrassment and spiritual poverty of reality.

The absurdity of women's sexual role is the focus on which feminist artists and scholar’s dispute, and the kernel question is substantial and difference of women. Why is a woman female but no male? What's the difference between women and men on earth? However, both female in Marxism and feminism in deconstructism hardly explored the structural elements of dual sexual consciousness in direction of conscious activities and then on base of this congnizance discovered the different field of two sexual spiritual activities. It appears simple and rough to consider that psychic difference between men and women is only result of diversifying in the body's and biology's special function-excluding which both have 'rational psyche'. Careful search and observation shows that sexual difference can retrospect to the origin of spirit itself. This contains that women's idea、judgement、structure of value is quite different relative to those of men, and there is substantial difference which can't be exceeded from body、psyche to linguistic style. The particular internal right of women’s values lies in "what a women likes is not a person's 'achievement' or value of achievement, but the value of his integrated existence." (Shela 'significance of feminist movement') "A person's integrated existence" is rather a kind of feminist social idea and ultimate concern than judgement of women's existence value. The "integrated existence" expresses the mission sense of arousing human's love、ration、conscience and making civil society have unitary culture of more human nature and human sentiment. The card in hand of difference is no more than power, however women's dictatorship is not feminist purpose either. Its profound connotation is to eliminate、innovate men's Rococo, and input new cultural spirit and significance, meanwhile to update and change women's value criterion of settling down and getting on with their pursuit.

The value viewpoint of "integrated existence" shows a kind of design in paleontology's psychophysics---a kind of dual sexual culture character which contains "hermaphrodites", also the equal status of human nature in matemal times. However, the movement of "returning to fantasy " may be too late. Perhaps it is a realistic idea of avoiding hypercorrection to filter and select our tradition---building a kind of culture which shows not only men's biology demand and spiritual deepness but also women's intuition power and pacifism. This might have more rational self-acknowledge than identity loss and sense of impotence after deconstruction.

Return to Yaomin Yuan's consecutive inquiry and discovery, and we are able realise more than the embarrassed situation faced by us broad descendants of Qin's figurines, and more than the great but poor carnal suffering symbolized by "Madona's body". The more important is that we should grasp the kernel fact of life's existence, and plough the depth of dual sexes and spirit in order to let them "flourish" and "pretty".

The lunar first month of tiger's year, Fangzhuang Beijing

The Absurdity of Culture Sign and Female Expression
-----Analyzing the thesis of Yuan Yaomin's works
Deng Pingxiang

From the thesis of YuanYaoming's recent works, we call see that this female painter has
developed her female consciousness to culture consciousness. This progress gives her more
expression freedom and scope. Although her works still makes us believe that she is an artist
that devoted to feminism, she now can analyze feminism art with culture spirit. Therefore, her
works exceeds simple feminism and has culture height and humanism characteristics.
Human being is the subject of culture, and as female is part of human being, they are also the subjects of culture. However, only when a person is creating culture can he/she be called a real human being. In other words, "culture is the symbolic activity of human being."
Culture is the realization and concretization of human being's sign activity.
Generally speaking, Yuanyaoming's recent works are the absurdity of culture sign, that is, she takes absurd signs as the way to express female's "desire language" and personalization.
Some people regard human beings as "social animals ", and some people regard human being as "rational animals ". However, semiotics scholars regard human being as "semiotic animals "or "animals that use sign to create culture." No matter it is idealism or materialism, the introduction of semiotics undoubtedly enriched and deepened human's acknowledgement and understanding of culture. When it is used to create and criticize art, its unique value and signi8caRTce is manifested.
Yuanyaoming is so perceptive to sign that she can use it in her art creation.
Discovery of troops and horses buried in Emperor Qinshihuang's tombs shocked the whole world and is called "the 8th wonder of the world". Now it has become a typical cultural and historical symbol of China. It infers not only culture significance but also historic significance. It reminds people all information about China. You may not feel this clearly under Chinese culture and language circumstance, but if you are in the west, you will be surprised at the charming and tremendous capacity of this symbol. Maybe at this time you will be reverent to those western philosophers who created semiotics.
Yuanyaoming has her own purpose on choosing troops and horses of Qin Dynasty as her expressional sign. Troops and horses mean power, mightiness and strength. while from the female's point of view, all of these are the male's characteristics. Undoubtedly this is the primal reason that Yuanyaoming chose these Figures as her expressional sign. However, this is only one level of this female painter's various content, which includes her resistance to culture, her critics towards mail dominance culture and her disappointment to current male. This is identical to some arguments appeared in recent years, such as "female dominance thesis" and "female's culture thesis".
When using the troops and horses to express her thought, Yuan freely offends the sublime and holiness of this symbol. She uses some signs that imply the female's sexuality and shame those shy people. People will then find that we cannot judge these works by traditional aesthetic sense and then ugliness judgment, which is opposite to aesthetic judgment, is naturally introduced to modem art and art philosophy. "Ugliness judgment" is the new problem appeared in aesthetic following the development of modem art. When art steps into modem form, classical aesthetics can no longer explain and comprehend all the content of modem art. As a result, some scholars suggest sense logy is preferable to aesthetics, because in ancient Egypt, aesthetics originally meant knowledge of sense.
In academic circles, whether "aesthetics" will be replaced by "sense logy" is not only a
theoretical problem but also a practical problem. It will be a latter topic if people find sense logy is more suitable for art. However, it is an unavoidable problem that classical aesthetic is partial to modem art, so some art historians suggest that modem an is the combination of aesthetic judgment and ugliness judgment.
Combination dleory undoubtedly supplies theory basis to analyze and explain Yuanyaoming's works. Aesthetic judgment is obviously not enough for modern aH. It originates from deep philosophy and humanism background. When Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm declared that God has died, the reevaluation problem comes to the point, and people began to challenge classical aesthetics, which is based on idealism and realism.
Absurdity is not only the characteristic of Yuan's works, but also her artistic expression style.
Why absurdity? This question is not easy to answer. But if simply considering all artist
him/herself, it originates from the authenticity of his/her nature and the deep contradiction of his/her spirit and thought. Yuan is such an artist. She is so authentic and persistent that she often reminds people of Sabinna (the heroine in "unbearable being in life ", a female painter) , who is created by Milan Kundera. Her motto is: never be ingratiating to men, power, system, fashion and so on. This is my first impression that Yuan leaves me. A mindful and characteristic person is always contradictive, otherwise he/she will have no question, no motivation and no creation.Naturally contradicts is divided into different levels. Every person has physical contradictions but only a few people have meta-physical contradictions.
Absurdity is opposite to reason. It's reasonless, illogical, irreconcilable and irrational. In
philosophers' opinion absurdity means losing concordances among people, between people and the circumstances between people and themselves, and the deep absurdity about the meaningless existence that followed. According to Yonikers, absurdity appears when a person is separated from his religions, metaphysical and transcendent origin. Nietzsche said we need art so as not to be killed by truth. How to understand his sentence? Mary philosophers such as Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Heidegger all agree that the essence of life is desire and pain, and life itself is tragic. The only way to cast off pain and desire is art. These philosophers place their hope on art to save human being's spirit. So only an can make human not killed by truth. Is truth really so horrible? During the past ages many things that killed human nature and depressed human being's freedom were regarded as truth, but they are anallv senled to be sins and fallacies. So some pessimistic philosopher as Nietzsche lost confidence on truth and turned to art for help. The inference of Nietzsche's admonition is well worth thinking about.
Yuan's absurd art originates (consciously or unconsciously) from those philosophers ' deep thought about human being and the world. Although they have different objects, their directions are the same. In this sense, Yuan's life philosophy is also pessimism. In her eyes all lofty, holy and sacred things are utilized and one of the important cultural functions of art is to resist utilization and materialism. Yuan found that normal expression is suitable neither for ale reality nor for her, so she naturally chose absurdity as her tool. In her opinion only absurd art is powerful enough to describe the absurd reality. Camus, the great absurdity artist said, "The clearest thinking way must be included in an absurd work of art, but at the same time, thought should not be explicit, just like wisdom should be moderate." The absurd reality produces absurdity artist. Works of art resist and exceed the existing reason and rules. They are not reckless and they need supernormal wisdom. So " the clearest thinking way must be included".
Tracing 'Yuan's works, I see clearly her coherent thinking way, which forms her philosophy of art, and makes her insistence on her art thesis and artistic style.
In l998 a new thesis "fair maiden", which developed into "who is the fail maiden", appeared when interpreting the symbols of troops and horses in Yuan's sensitive art topics. The lexical meaning of "fair maiden" is a woman that abides traditional Chinese moral principles, under which their life meaning and freedom were depressed to the lowest level. In China modem female liberation started form May 4th, 1919, when the New Culture Movement took place. Unfortunately it ended up as a political movement so this so called Female liberation lost its human nature origin, especially when the female liberation was utilized, it developed to the extreme that "male and female are the same" and "the female are equipped with iron hands and iron feet", and "the female prefer military uniform to fashionable dress". Political passion drove female liberation into a blind alley. Yuan's new thesis includes not only the above background but also female's fate in economic tide. Women who love military uniform and women who are economically successful ate identical in form. After combining this thesis with the symbols of troops and horses, Yuan makes her works satiric besides absurd. Obviously Yuan is trying to and modern women's identification by the topic of "fair maiden" in a complicated contradicted thought. Just like the play writer asks, " Who am I?" In absurd play "Confession", Yuan also asks, "Who are we feminine?" in her works.
Before long, Yuan produced another series titled "hot weapon-new troops and horses of Qin Dynasty". This series is even fiercer and sharper. Through this series, this female painter extends her feminine thesis to a most intense level. She finally converged the female she creates into troops and horses through their common ground, which is strength and power. Among the various connotations of her new series, "hot weapon-new troops and horses of Qin Dynasty" mentioned the problem of violence. I'm not sure how Yuan think about the violence in the culture structures but her purpose is obvious5 that is, she wants to destruct and dispel violence from our culture by showing violence to people. Her works make appreciators have perceptive understanding on violence. For female naturally reject violence.
In real life, Yuan is not sharp; in fact she is moderate. Both artist and art are plenty, complicated and even contradictive . The style of works is not necessarily identical to the personality of its creator. The difference between them does not imply the division of an artist's personality, because all artist's works could be not just his /her ideal and hope but also his/her dream or fantasy or some other things.

In Beijing, Sep21,2002

Yuan Yaomin’s paintings

Author: Andrea Stelzner

Chinese society has always laid great stress on the need for man to understand the pattern of nature and how to live in accordance with it.

Nature was seen as the visible manifestation of the generative interaction of the Yin and Yang (female /male) dualism.

Yuan Yaomin breaks with the traditional painting style, but she is one of the few female artists attached to a modern day interpretation of the Yin and Yang principle.

“The present changes and contradictions come down to a basic conflict between the words of men and the concepts of women .”

She uses religious and gender related symbols and allegories to mock male chauvinism, making fun of the stereotyped male beauty seen as so desirable to women.

Naked women constitute an indispensable topic in men's gossip talk. Why can't women talk about men stripped off their clothes?

Is there a modern equivalent to the ancient Yin and Yang relationship?

(A challenging place to world)

Author: Hilary Binks

Yuan yaomin, a native of Hebei who studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and now teaches at the Central University in Beijing, introduces an historical element into her painting. Her New Composition of Terracotta Warriors series (1996-1997) takes one of China’s most famous archaeological treasures as its subject; one, which she points out, that is entirely male oriented. “I remember visiting Xian for the first time as a university student,” says Yuna. “The terracotta warriors made a strong impression on me, which I couldn’t express at that time. When I saw there was not a single female warrior, it led me to ponder the long history of inequality between the sexes in China. In 1996 I began to paint works on this theme.”

In Yuan’s paintings, the sexuality of the warriors has been deliberately changed from male to female-the soldiers’ helmets have been transformed into elaborate hairstyles and the figures are adorned with brightly colored bikinis. Interspersed between the warriors are a number of large pink lotus flowers, symbols of female sexuality and fecundity. In Who is the Fair Lady No.20 (1998), the “warrior” is wearing a full bridal gown with veil, while in Who is the Fair Lady No.3 (1996), two lady warriors lean towards each other in a dancer’s embrace.

The most striking of these works is Red Wall Gray Tiles (1997), which shows a group of figures whose femininity is accentuated by their sensual posture and by their expressive hands with long elegant fingers, articulated in the manner of Balinese dancers. Along with the light-hearted elements caused by this cross-dressing spectacle, which has all the panache of a gay parade, the painting also has sinister undertones, the mottled gray fingers suggesting the skeletal bones of ghosts from the past. Whether the expressions on the warriors’ lipsticked mouths are grins or grimaces is debatable, especially in the case of the one whose eyes meet those of the viewer.

Yuan is unconcerned whether her work conveys an image of horror or of beauty. “ My impulse to paint is immediate and strong, my style flows quite within me, quite naturally,” she says. “The main thing is to attract the viewer’ s attention. Then people will see that my paintings are a challenge to a world dominated by male power. Female artists in general show more sensibility, whereas male artists are usually more rational. If my style is a bit more feminine and romantic, that reflects part of my nature. I am not opposing men, as such, in the world, only their sense of superiority. Since women have the ability to go out and work now, as well as taking care of the home and children, they should be granted equal status to men.”

(ASIAN ART NEWS –Stereotyping under attack)