Yue Minjun paintings express how the “I” within his representations experiences desubstantialization because the self can easily shift from one plain of meaning to another. The face of Yue Minjun is also the face and faces of others, and these faces are simiar to one another and evoke a sense of uniformity. The definition of the self in Yue Minjun’s artworks does not always take the object. This defining of the self can be seen as a reflection in which the self that brings a collective indentity is the self, which is a part of another person, or of a society, or of humankind.

Although these paintings have been born of an experience that is very personal, the position of the individual in Yue Minjun pieces is no longer an position opposite of that of the other person of society. Because of this, the self-portraits in Yue Minjun paintings are self-portraits that are shattered. Self-portraits that is post-auratic. The self in the self-portraits of Yue Minjun is no longer personal.

This shift in self-identification in the works of Yue Minjun is related to the shifts in reality which are depicted in the representations of Yue Minjun, a reality that is influenced by the developments in the techno-industrial system, the communications revolution, and the multinational system of economics. This reality can almost not be comprehended because it is circled/surrounded by signs and symbols that no longer seek outvalues but instead guard the continuity of production within an economic system. Images, signs and symbols that have a massive influence that can no longer be controlled. Michel Foucault seen this as philosophical hermenteutices (techno-industrial principles that can be justfied by scientific knowledge, norms and philosophy), which operate as modern bio-politics.

Whatever reality Yue Minjun sets forth in his works is a reality surrounded by those images, signs and symbols. This reality is a far cry from the “reality of nature” within the understanding of philosophy. Because of that, the representation in Yue Minjun artworks no longer attempts to seek out meaning. Yue Minjun makes no effort to comprehend the reality he is facing.