Lisa Chang Lee：Present Absence

Ginkgo Space is delighted to open Lisa Chang Lee’s second solo exhibition Present Absence on December 4th, 2021. This exhibition presents new works by Lisa Chang Lee, including sculpture, photography, lightbox, drawing and digital technology created from 2019 to 2021.

The ecocentric view opposes the anthropomorphic view. The title of the show Present Absence plays with these opposing andmutually implicated ideas of nature. Derrida describes in Of Grammatology[1] traditionally ordered pairs as presence/absence and nature/culture in which the first term is viewed as primary and original while the second term is seen as secondary and derivative, it is a privileging of the first ‘presence’ over absence. He subsequently reads those terms in such a way as to reverse thepriority, making the second term primary and original and the first term secondary and derivative.[2]Nature and culture[3], although some times seen as opposing, are intrinsically intertwined with each other. Originally culture has been seen as an addition to or derivative of nature in its purest form. Nature however finds its place through the cultural value it’s given.

Lisa’s work deals with the relation human beings have with their living environment.

The exhibition shows work that addresses the ecocentric view that people are inseparable from the in organic and organic nature that encapsulates them. This view is presented through the artist’s wanderings, creating an exhibition reflecting on our constantly transforming world.

Scattered through the gallery and presented on a marble plinth are bronze cast leaves.The performative gesture of picking up a leave is marked as a finger print on the veins of the leaves. Extra Ordinary reflects through the use of classical sculptural materials, the eternity of the earth’s cycles. The tree, a hybrid of American sycamore and Oriental plane, came to live through human intervention.

Harmony 0, this sound sculpture translates the collected data, through a computer, into sound.The sound is Lisa’s voice being linked to the different collected elements creating a nocturne which changes depending on the elements presentin the air surrounding us.

The drawing I Miss You Too echoed the never-ending time being away from her loved ones. The materiality, a drawing of a text message, shows us a deliberate slowing down of time. Sharing My Sky came to light through a similar sentiment. The boundaries of the earth which we all see on a daily basis became a project where the artist invited people from all over the world to send in the sky they saw. The work, lightboxes with c-prints, have in addition a message sent in with the images of the skies.In Lisa’swork it is the objects that holds the knowledge of her thinking about the conversation she has with nature.

Lisa Chang Lee is an artist  based in London and Beijing. She obtained her bachelor degree in fine art from CAFA and a Master Degree from the Royal College of Art in London. She is now a personal tutor at the Royal College of Art.

Lee has exhibited her work nationally and internationally in recent years including Solo Exhibition Symphony Zero at Sanmei Gallery, London (2021); Serenade of the Woods at the Rattles Collective,London (2019); Summer Exhibition- Royal Academy of Art(2021，2019)；Nunnery Moving-Image biennale, Nunnery Gallery, London, 2018；Solo Exhibition Indeterminate Loop at Gingko Space, Beijing (2017); Unstable Landscape, M100 Contemporary Art Centre, Santiago (2018);Her diverse practice was also featured in various events and exhibitions including the thematic exhibition Collective City in Seoul Biennale 2019(Korea); Aesthetica Art Prize 2018；York Art Gallery (2018); Ideals On The Move, Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, Shenzhen, China(2017), etc.  Lee is also one of the panel curators of International Printmaking Triennial at China Academy of Art(CAA)

She is the winner of Contemporary Arts Trust Prize 2019; Multiple prize winner as an associate member in the Royal Society of Painter-printmakers; her video work Western Dream was recently awarded the Runner-up prize at the artist film section in Seoul Biennale 2019; She was also nominated the Awards of Art China  (AAC) in 2018.

Her works are in permanent collections globally including the Royal Collection of the United Kingdom, the British Museum, Ashmolean Museum Oxford, V&A；Metropolitan Museum amongst others.

The exhibition opens till February 26th, 2022.

Note: Thisarticle includes some excerpts written by Dr.Jeroen van Dooren.

[1]Derrida, Jacques, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Of grammatology. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976)

[2]Michael P. Spikes. An Interdisciplinary Journal, Summer/Fall 1992, Vol. 75, No. 2/3, (Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press, 1992) pp. 337

[3]Derrida, Jacques. Positions, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago University Press, 1981) pp.26