Cut, Copy, Paste: Yu Youhan and the Refashioning of China’s Past

Abstract

Best known for his lush landscapes and geometrical abstracts, Shanghai-born artist Yu Youhan 余友涵 (b. 1943) has frequently been in the limelight of curatorial and scholarly activities. Yet his vibrant pop works, which capture decisive moments in modern Chinese history, have insufficiently been considered mere juxtapositions of imagery derived from socialist China, political figures of the time, and commerce. This article offers new insights into the mechanics of signification in the artist’s Political Pop works by examining the ways in which different kinds of imagery are appropriated, manipulated and recontextualised. Three in-depth semiotic analyses counter the assumption that Yu’s copy-and-paste practice might indicate a lack of originality or even the decay of Political Pop, which had come to a halt in his practice by the early 2000s. Rather, the various acts of appropriation prove to be astute artistic strategies that reinforce the artist’s originality and criticality. By emptying and recoding individual signifiers, Yu’s work blurs the line between fact and fiction and challenges stable narratives usually expressed in official history paintings. In other words, the artist gives birth to a contemporary form of history painting, or rather an anti-history painting, in the style of Political Pop that refashions the cultural memory of China’s past.

Keywords

• Yu Youhan
• Political Pop
• appropriation
• historicisation
• contemporary Chinese art