(b.1963)方力钧

　　Fang Lijun, a 1989 graduated of the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, is a major exponent of the so-called “Rogue Cynicism” style, one of the key developments of post-1989 Chinese painting. Fang’s works employ a subtle humour, depicting the ridiculous and lamentable reality behind the trivia of the everyday. In 1990, Fang began a series of oil paintings whose images and situational contexts, such as the yawning self, the man with his hand in his pockets or the inexplicable laughing crowd, reflect the artist’s main thematic concern with “the absurd, mundane and meaningless events of everyday life”. Regardless of the characters’ age or gender, they are all idle. The fact that Fang chooses to depict most of his character with shaved heads creates a symbolic language whose visual syntax eliminates differences of age, status or gender. Fang’s mockingly absurd characters are trapped by the inescapable present: they are always posed in a fixed environment, such as against the sea or the sky, that ironically evokes a sense of romance and timelessness. In Fang’s latest series of “aquatic” paintings, the only certain sensation is of floating on the surface, shiftless.

　　Fang Lijun’s works have appeared in a number of national and international exhibitions, including, in 1993, the China’s New Art: Post-1989 exhibition in Hong Kong, the Mao Goes Pop exhibition in Sydney and Marlborough, the New Art from China: Post-1989 exhibition at London’s Marlborough Gallery, and the Venice Biennale.