Category Archives: Appropriation

2020, All Entries, All Exhibitions, All Install Views, All News, All Works, Installation, Photography, Projects, public art, Public Art, Solo Exhibition

Public Art/Exhibition: Evan Lee: Fugazi, Teck Gallery, May 11, 2019 – Apr 26, 2020


Photo by Blaine Campbell
Evan Lee: Fugazi

Teck Gallery

May 11, 2019 - Apr 26, 2020
Evan Lee's image-based practice takes up interdisciplinary considerations of vision and
constructions of value through photography, painting and sculpture. In particular, Lees work
examines the aesthetic and social consequences that occur in the evolution of images and
imaging technology. His yearlong photo-based installation, Fugazi at the Teck Gallery,
considers methods of image capture as they effect ways of seeing and how value is socially
constructed.

Fugazi begins from photographic scans of cubic zirconia, a relatively inexpensive crystalline
form of synthesized material that often stands in for diamonds.[1] The images are captured
in detail and enlarged to a scale that transforms the gemstones internal appearance to one
that magnifies the distortion and fracture of light. Capturing is integral to photography and
Lees image capture opens up space for the questioning of optic purity, of the cubic zirconia
and of the image itself (as the act of enlargement results in a loss detail). The resulting
abstract patterns and refracted colours in Fugazi present a destabilizing kaleidoscopic
effect, similar to sunlit stained-glass windows.

Because of low cost, durability, purity, and visual likeness, cubic zirconia has been seen as a potential solution to the controversy surrounding the rarity and valuation of diamonds.
However, the diamond monopoly persists in perpetuating and fabricating worth through
other cultural measures. Fugazi is a fictionalized slang term for a counterfeit gemstone.[2]

The captures of the tiny gemstones are scaled up and bisected for the Teck Gallery to
fenestral proportions, and in their installation begin to share a language of architecture,
landscape and development. In dialogue with the Teck Gallerys view overlooking Burrard
Inlet and North Vancouvers coastal mountains, Fugazi is an intervention in the edifice,
mimicking and making strange aspects of building and its design, akin to a faceted window
illuminated from behind. Conjuring spaces of worship, the installation speaks to economies
of belief including religion, education and capitalism. Rising like mineral suns, Fugazi
positions the images along a horizon line that connects with our daily planetary rotations
while also drawing lines to the extraction industries and the appetite for development that
Vancouver is built on.[3]

Fugazi carries an open-ended resonance in relation to value and land. Extraction economies
are increasingly being challenged in this moment of late capitalism where climate change is
an oppressive force and a turn to renewal and alternate solutions are called for. Our relation
to land as a site of colonization is showing its irreversible damage to cultural and
environmental ecologies. In its consideration of the complexity of vision, Fugazi asks us to
unpack how we understand value in the image and its referents.

Lee is a Vancouver based artist whose work has been exhibited nationally and
internationally. He received his MFA from the University of British Columbia. Exhibitions
include Libby Leshgold Gallery; Winnipeg Art Gallery; Richmond Art Gallery; Kamloops Art
Gallery; Vancouver Art Gallery; Capture Festival; SFU Gallery; Contemporary Art Gallery;
Presentation House Gallery; Contact Photography Festival; Le Mois de la Photo Montreal;
Liu Hai Su Museum; and Confederation Centre. Lees work has been featured in Border
Crossings, Flash Art International, Lapiz International Art Magazine, Yishu Journal of
Contemporary Chinese Art, Canadian Art, and Art on Paper. He was shortlisted for the
Sobey Art Prize in 2014 and has undertaken public art commissions. His work is
represented by Monte Clark Gallery.
Curated by Melanie O'Brian

http://www.sfu.ca/galleries/teck-gallery/EvanLee-Fugazi.html.html

TECK GALLERY
SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street
Vancouver BC
2016, All Entries, Captures, Installation, Projects, public art, Public Art, Uncategorized

Public Art: Three Ginseng Roots, 2016 – Public Art Installation, River Park Place

The photographic sculpture Three Ginseng Roots is a commissioned artwork for River Park Place in Richmond, BC. Balancing modern materials and processes with natural forms and colours, the three glass panels are installed within the water feature to give the sense that the roots are floating.

Ginseng is a medicinal plant used by many cultures and especially in traditional Chinese medicine. Rare and precious specimens that have been found in the wild can be seen on display at the many herbal stores in Richmond. Ginseng is also grown on farms throughout Canada, including on the Fraser River. The artwork promotes good health, well-being and connection with nature.

It is said that the dried roots resemble human figures. These roots have been enlarged to the size of a person to make them come to life and so that viewers will imagined their own characters and personalities for them them

2014, All Entries, All Works, Appropriation, Collage, Drawing, Photography

Black Bloc (Black Blot), 2014, mixed media (series)

Black Bloc (Black Blot), 2014, mixed media

Beginning in 2009, the artist began looking critically at found media and historical images, particularly those depicting protest and migration, with the intention of recreating, transforming, and expanding them through interdisciplinary forms such as sculpture, mixed media, and paintings. Staring with the project, Migrant Ship Re-Creation, this also took the form of several related projects: Migrant Portraits, Black Bloc (Black Blot), Black Bloc Abstraction (Diptych), Burning Flag (after Jyllands-Posten)

In contrast to popular, ubiquitous images of revolution and provocation (such as Alberto Korda’s portrait of Che Guevara, or the graffiti works of Banksy), the found press images that artist refers to are markedly non-iconic, from nameless and faceless Black Bloc protesters to migrants whose identities have been obscured by the press. Lee approaches these images from a perspective of speculation, creating artworks that either reconstruct or further obscure the subjects. This dual process amplifies the missing details and facts that are not included in the original press images or their accompanying news stories, pointing to an inherent confusion or lack of clarity surrounding the actual events.

These works include large-scale black and white paintings where silhouettes of marching Black Bloc protesters have been repeated in a motif that borders on abstraction; earth-toned, classical style oil portraits of the same migrants created in composite from blurry or pixelated press images and online searches; and a video that recreates the burning of a Danish flag, which was originally enacted by protesters in response to anti-Muslim cartoons that were published in Denmark. The works engage in a dialogue with news media images of protest, the interpretation of these images, their bias and their influence.

2013, 2014, All Entries, All Works, Appropriation, Painting

Black Bloc Abstraction #1 and #2, 2013-14, Oil on Canvas

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Black Bloc Abstraction #1 and #2 (diptych), 2013-14, Oil on Canvas

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MCG install 2014 square

 

Beginning in 2009, the artist began looking critically at found media and historical images, particularly those depicting protest and migration, with the intention of recreating, transforming, and expanding them through interdisciplinary forms such as sculpture, mixed media, and paintings. Staring with the project, Migrant Ship Re-Creation, this also took the form of several related projects: Migrant Portraits, Black Bloc (Black Blot), Black Bloc Abstraction (Diptych), Burning Flag (after Jyllands-Posten)

In contrast to popular, ubiquitous images of revolution and provocation (such as Alberto Korda’s portrait of Che Guevara, or the graffiti works of Banksy), the found press images that artist refers to are markedly non-iconic, from nameless and faceless Black Bloc protesters to migrants whose identities have been obscured by the press. Lee approaches these images from a perspective of speculation, creating artworks that either reconstruct or further obscure the subjects. This dual process amplifies the missing details and facts that are not included in the original press images or their accompanying news stories, pointing to an inherent confusion or lack of clarity surrounding the actual events.

These works include large-scale black and white paintings where silhouettes of marching Black Bloc protesters have been repeated in a motif that borders on abstraction; earth-toned, classical style oil portraits of the same migrants created in composite from blurry or pixelated press images and online searches; and a video that recreates the burning of a Danish flag, which was originally enacted by protesters in response to anti-Muslim cartoons that were published in Denmark. The works engage in a dialogue with news media images of protest, the interpretation of these images, their bias and their influence.

2009, 2010, All Entries, All Series, All Works, Appropriation, Painting, PaintingPhotography, Photography

Forest Fires, 2009-10 (series)

Forest Fires, 2009-10

In the landscape series Forest Fires the artist continues to employ the manipulated printer ink technique used in Flashers to found images of British Columbia forest fires.

The artist approaches this material in a way that reflects these shifts: he experiments with printing on the back of expired photographic paper and works over the still-wet pigment ink using a paintbrush. This results in a unique (un-duplicable) image that is faint and distorted, and resembles a painting, while remaining fundamentally a photograph. The substrate’s watermark, which reads “KODAK PROFESSIONAL PAPER”, once the proud hallmark of Kodak’s analog photographic legacy, remains visible in the overexposure.

Installation View, In Dialogue with Carr, Vancouver Art Gallery,
Image courtesy Rachel Topham/VAG
1950, 2008, 2009, All Entries, All Series, All Works, Appropriation, Installation, Performance, Photography, Rephotography

Nude and Draped Figure Studies by the artist and his father, c.1950/2008-09

Nude and Draped Figure Studies by the artist and his father, c.1950/2008-09

Another pseudo-collaboration between the artist and his father, where nude studies made by the artist’s father in the 1950s are the source material for a period re-creation. In the finished installation of this work, the images made by the artist in the present were displayed with ones made by his father in the past, as if made by the same person at the same time and place. The artist’s intention was to create an anachronism. This project is the second time that the artists has used his father’s amateur photography and consider both projects to be collaborations with his father despite the 50-60 years difference and his very limited involvement. These projects follow a lineage of conceptual themes considered by artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Sherrie Levine, and Richard Prince probing the idea of originality and authorship in the work of art, but pushes further to consider the uncertain and unexpected roles that certain and unavoidable relations, such as those of family, time and history, might play.

2009, All Entries, All Series, All Works, Appropriation, Painting, PaintingPhotography, Photography

Flashers, 2009 (series)

Flashers, 2009 (series)

The series Flashers examines self-representation nude selfies found online. Each of them was taken in the mirror with flash, resulting in overexposed area that obscures the identity of the subject. 
Collectively, the images are a testament to the change that aesthetics, photography and sexuality have undergone due to the development of digital photography and the Internet.

The artist approaches this material in a way that reflects these shifts: he experiments with printing on the back of expired photographic paper and works over the still-wet pigment ink using a paintbrush. This results in a unique (un-duplicable) image that is faint and distorted, and resembles a painting, while remaining fundamentally a photograph. The substrate’s watermark, which reads “KODAK PROFESSIONAL PAPER”, once the proud hallmark of Kodak’s analog photographic legacy, remains visible in the overexposure.

Installation view, Flashers at Restricted, Monte Clark Gallery
2012, All Entries, All Series, All Works, Appropriation, Collage, in progress, Photography

Phoropter Studies, 2012 (series), photo

Phoropter Studies, 2012 (series)

photo-collage, 15 images, edition of 3, 10.25 x 10.25 inches

Phoropter Studies is a series of photo-collage works made using studies of vintage optometry instruments to explore vision and optics. The artist, who has worn glasses for most of his life, began collecting phoropters, a device used by optometrists to measure vision. The works have a disorienting three-dimensional quality, which was further explored in the sculpture.

1950, 2000, All Entries, All Series, All Works, Appropriation, Photography, Rephotography

Rephotography, c.1950/2000 (series)

Rephotography, c.1950/2000 (series)

Rephotography c.1950/2000 is a “pseudo-collaborative” project involving Kodachrome images originally made by the artist’s father shortly after he immigrated to Canada from China in the 1950s. As this collaboration took place unintentionally, and after the passage of 50 years, it reconsiders questions of originality and authorship originally proposed in conceptual photographic practices of the 1970s and 80s, but through a lens of identity and family history