Guo Jian

Military Party (1 & 2) 2000

Guo Jian is an artist with an international reputation for satirical and analytical qualities that question authority and government overreach. Following his experience as a propaganda poster artist in the People’s Liberation Army in China after enlisting in 1972, he has created a successful career as an artist in China, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Germany, France, Belgium, Sweden, Hong Kong and the USA.

His work is featured in many prominent private and public collections all over the world. The work shown at Mount Monument is from an exhibition from 2000 at Ray Hughes Gallery in Surrey Hills, Sydney, entitled The New Face of China. It showed a collection of contemporary Chinese artists who were all exploring the rapid period of modernisation and western influence in Beijing and China through the 1990s. Guo Jian’s military experience altered his idealism and especially after the horror of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, changed his perspective on the role of the military and the Chinese government.

Both works are satirical pieces of debauchery and dissent by members of the military, karaoke and opium dens set the scene with faces that are in most part self portraits of Guo Jian and nameless women. This was in an interesting period to paint in China, a decade of liberal freedoms during the Hu Jintao years, examples of irreverent Chinese political art that is comfortable anywhere other than China. Guo Jian’s vibrant personality shines though in both works and most importantly in his words, shows that he is always laughing, with or without you.

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