In honor of yesterday’s Chinese New Year — happy year of the snake! — Paris’s Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art commissioned artist Yue Minjun to create a short celebratory video (embedded below). Predictably, the result makes copious use of the artist’s trademark smiling faces, which form a constellation in the shape of the number “2013″ in the short video.

Yue is currently the subject of a major survey show at the Cartier Foundation that brings together over 40 of his paintings and many drawings. That exhibition continues through February 24. The 50-second video features animated drawings of his familiar smiling faces and the voices of the artist and his family.

— Benjamin Sutton

(Video © Yue Minjun.)

Tags: Benjamin Sutton, Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art, Chinese New Year, News, Video, Yue Minjun