Mr. Jiji
Pop icons find love in a hilarious series of illustrated work
What if Skeletor and He-man stopped fighting and just cuddled each other, Voldemort and Harry Potter became playmates, or a stormtrooper left the dark side and met Yoda for a bit of sexual play?
Just Love is a series of graphic artwork designed by Fu Hang, AKA Mr. Jiji, a young artist from Harbin who calls Beijing home. Hang believes that “irony is a key feature of art,” and he uses this irony by craftily overturning the meanings of national propaganda. “Maybe Just Love is the ultimate essence of Hu Jintao’s political mantra of a hexie shehui, the idea of China as a ‘harmonious society’ where people smoothly welcome development as a source of a broader welfare, where everybody loves each other,” he says.
Mr. Jiji’s dirty humor—as seen in his previous Pervert Dictators series—isn’t exactly something for a broad audience in China. “I’m having fun and I’m not claiming to do art for the elite,” he says. “What I do could be seen as gross by some people, but there are still others who can appreciate the irony behind it.” Mr. Jiji’s commitment to satire can be seen in his adopted name, which sounds something like “wiener” in his native Chinese.
Along with his pal Xumo, AKA EMO, Fu Hang is about to launch a website to showcase their artworks and sell postcards, prints, mugs, T-shirts and other gadgets with their branded graphics. In the pipeline is also an animated short. “This is actually our main project for 2013,” explains Hang. “We’d like to do a sort of Chinese-style Happy Tree Friends.”
Currently, a selection of Mr. Jiji’s work can be found at Moji Shop.
Images courtesy of Mr. Jiji
