Untitled (Constellation) at the 60th Venice Biennale
The 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia : Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere curated by Adriano Pedrosa
Kang Seung Lee employs various artistic media, including drawing, embroidery, installation, and the appropriation of organic materials and objects.
In the Biennale Arte 2024, Lee's work combines the narrative and iconographic possibilities of artistic figures such as Goh Choo San, Tseng Kwong Chi, Martin Wong, Jose Leonilson, and Joon-soo Oh, among other artists who died due to AIDS-related complications. Within the artist's environment, spectators can reconfigure queer narratives in a transnational and transhistorical manner.
Drawings, embroideries crafted with 24-karat gold-plated lines, objects suspended from the celling, and other elements Installed on the walls enable viewers to navigate through narratives that pay homage to pivotal figures of queer culture in an antimonumental fashion Lee prefers a pluralistic view of history over an encyclopedic narrative, allowing micro- and macro-history to coexist within a single installation.
-Raphael Fonseca
Kang Seung Lee works with a variety of mediums, including drawing, embroidery, installation, and the appropriation of materials and objects from both public and private archives. His focus is on creating alternative narratives to amplify overlooked voices. In Lazarus, Lee intertwines the stories of two figures: Goh Choo San (1948-87), an innovative choreographer born in Singapore who made his mark with prestigious ballet companies across Europe, Asia, and the United States, and José Leonilson (1957-93), a Brazilian conceptual artist celebrated for his poignant and introspective works centered on themes of love and grief. Drawing inspiration from Goh Choo San's seminal ballet Unknown Territory (1986), choreographer Daeun Jung collaborates with Lee to choreograph a moving duet, where two dancers interact with a costume inspired by Leonilson's final piece, Lazaro (1993), a sculptural installation crafted from two stitched-together men's shirts, evoking themes of human suffering and belonging and queer intimacy. By recreating Leonilson's work with Sambe, a traditional hemp fabric used in Korea for funeral shrouds, Lazarus serves as a tribute to the lives and memories lost during the AIDS epidemic, as well as shedding light on the historical erasure of their profound artistic contributions.
-Amanda Carneiro
Photography by Mark Blower
