Lee’s videos, photographs will thrill
Conceptual artist Tim Lee is known for creating large-scale photographs and split-screen videos of his staged performance art pieces.
“Tim is a young Canadian who makes some really funny comments on popular culture using video,” says Eastern Washington University art professor Lanny DeVuono.
Lee will be in Spokane next week as the second speaker in the 2006-07 Visiting Artist Lecture Series (see details on page D5).
DeVuono first saw Lee’s work in “Binocular Parallax” at the Consolidated Works gallery in Seattle in 2002.
“I thought his work was a little irreverent,” she says, “but sympathetic and revealing.”
Lee, born in Korea in 1975, lives and works in Vancouver, B.C.
“Jokes, sight-gags and double-takes are central to Lee’s work, which is characterized by the subversion of gimmickry from the bane of serious artistic expression, to his very subject, turning a supposed weakness into a strength,” states in item on Cohan and Leslie art gallery’s Web site ( www.cohanandleslie.com).
“A lot of his work is in dialogue with films,” says DeVuono. “The visual arrangements in his video work carry the weight of his ideas.”
Lee will have a solo exhibition at Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle in Munich, Germany, this month.
He has had solo shows at Cohan and Leslie in New York City, Artists Outlet in Toronto and Institute of Contemporary Art in London, and has been in collective exhibitions including the Biennial in Prague, Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego and the Seattle Art Museum.
“He’s young, yet his work has a lot of weight to it,” says DeVuono. “There is a subtle social commentary that makes us examine ourselves in a certain way.”
The first speaker in the series was Portland-based art historian, critic and author Sue Taylor. She talked about how regionalist painter Grant Wood’s emotional life informed his iconic paintings depicting rural America.
Following Lee in the spring will be Los Angeles artist Doug Aitken, who will talk about how his large-scale cinematic art experiences focus on contemporary life.
Aitken recently wrapped his first large-scale public artwork, “Sleepwalkers,” in New York City. The project included continuous sequences of film scenes projected on six exterior facades in midtown New York, including the Museum of Modern Art
“His work is amazing,” says DeVuono.
The series is sponsored by the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Eastern Washington University and Spokane Falls Community College, with additional support from the Sahlin Foundation.
POAC’s ‘Student Art’
The “Student Art Exhibit” opens Friday at the Pend Oreille Arts Council Gallery in Sandpoint.
This multimedia exhibit features the work of art students and instructors from Sandpoint High School, Sandpoint Middle School, Sandpoint Charter School, Lake Pend Oreille High School, Priest River/Lamanna High School and Bonners Ferry High School.
“This is a wonderful way to show your support for our young artists and the arts programs in our schools,” said Carol Deaner, Pend Oreille Arts Council board president, in a news release.
Proceeds from the sale of works will directly benefit school art department programs.
An artists’ reception is Friday from 5:30 to 7 p.m. The show is up through April 16.
The POAC Gallery is located in the Power House at 120 E. Lake St. in Sandpoint. For more information call (208) 263-6139 or go online to www.artinsandpoint.org.
Nappa’s ‘Wallflowers’
“Wallflowers,” a ceramic wall installation by Lisa Nappa, opens Friday in the Moses Lake Museum and Art Center.
The show “is a playful formal composition that explores geometric structures and patterns, as well as color and repetition in space,” says museum curator Ann Golden in a news release.
After studying traditional Tibetan and Indian mandalas, Nappa began examining “the intricacy of the sunflower seeds’ patterns” in her own garden.
“I made the correlation of the significance of the formal structure the circle has on the universality of life,” says Nappa.
“Although my work has always been inspired by the circle,” she says, “this new thinking enabled the work to go in a new direction. ‘Wallflowers’ is the combination of these ideas that came together in a playful manner.”
Meet the Spokane artist at an opening reception on Friday from 7 to 9 p.m. at the free museum, 228 W. Third Ave. in Moses Lake. The show is up through April 13.
Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call (509) 766-9395 for more information.
WSU ‘reinterprets reality’
Women from the Washington State University community are “Reinterpreting Reality” through their art during a show at the Museum of Anthropology in College Hall through March 22.
This third annual group exhibit of paintings, photographs, sculpture and textile art features art by WSU students, faculty, staff and alumnae.
“These artists express their experiences and thoughts on racism, multiculturalism, gender, sexual identity and stereotypes as they redefine themselves within the traditional roles and labels offered by society,” says Compton Union Gallery on the Move director Gail Siegel in an e-mail.
Participating artists include: Alternatives to Violence on the Palouse, Crista Ann Ames, Kim Barrett, Melissa Deckman, Leola Dublin, Erika Frances Iiams; Rina Gang, Kirby M. Kelley, Rita Kepner, Lisa McCormick, Regina McMenomy, Jen Scott, Heidi Adielia Stanton, Christina Vala, Emma Lee R. Whitworth and Allyson Wolf.
The free gallery is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Other galleries
“The Angel Gallery in Coeur d’Alene is hosting its second annual Juried Community Watercolor Contest. Deadline for submissions is Saturday.
An artists’ reception is March 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. in the gallery, 423 Sherman Ave. For more information call (208) 665-7232.