Fang Lijun: The Precipice over the Clouds

Fang Lijun (born 1963) is the artist most closely associated with the painting movement dubbed "Cynical Realism," that emerged in China in the 1990s. Cynical Realist painters reacted to the recent history and political present of their country--from the 1911 revolution to the Maoist revolution to the recent capitalist boom--with a barely suppressed irony and often brutal humor, depicting the country in a state of moral bankruptcy and spiritual atrophy. In the case of Fang Lijun, this stance produced wildly colorful canvases populated with demented faces grinning to oppressive excess against cheerful blue skies. Lijun's work has met with great acclaim outside of China, having been exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Pompidou in Paris. With more than 200 color reproductions, this volume offers the most substantial overview of his paintings to date.