Massimo Audiello
526 West 26th Street, 5th Floor, 212-675-9082
Chelsea
November 2 - December 16, 2006
Reception: Thursday, November 2, 6 - 8 PM
Web Site
The title of the show Reservoir shows the clear intention of Lee to bring the viewer to the center focus of his work: love.
Love is an endless natural reservoir which we should be able to access freely and abundantly. Unfortunately, what should be given to us as freely as milk to a child becomes regulated by the rules of society, morality, and cultural differences. These devices fracture the natural flow of love and set up an endless variety of obstacle and interruptions.
Lee’s works in this show span through a variety of media such as sculpture, collage, and paintings.
The sculptures are made of painted soda cans, covered with picture of boys’ faces, lips and eyes, strung together through ropes reconstructing a fractured body, while also extending the concept of a daisy chain, except the flowers have been substituted by body parts.
Another set of work is made of miniaturist collages where images are carved to include actual three-dimensional sculptures, commentaries to the objects of desire: lips, eyes, water.
A third body of work is paintings made with stained or dyed washcloths. They hang naked on the wall like flags of a “poetic battle” or a “love boat.” These washcloths also appear in many of the can sculptures. The cloth’s rawness becomes a metaphor of the existential weight and pathos of our struggles with desire and seduction. This recalls the sweat and tears that make our lives, even in the most pleasurable moments.