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Lee Wen (b. 1957 – d. 2019) was a multidisciplinary artist and one of Singapore’s most internationally recognised performance artists. Best known for his Journey of a Yellow Man series, Lee Wen’s performances and installations often exposed and questioned the ideologies and value systems of individuals as well as social structures. His work attempted to combine Southeast Asian contexts with international currents in contemporary art. His early practice was associated with the Artists Village, an alternative art group in Singapore and later forged a more individuated artistic career.
Splash! 潑！#5 & #6 (Edition 3 of 5), 109.2×109.2cm (Each), 113x113cm (Framed Each), Giclee Print on Cotton Rag Paper *Price: $30,000.00 (sold as a set, price for the set of 2)Yellow on Yellow: Dreamboat 黃人身上的黃色：夢之船, 1998 – 2014, 152.4×101.6cm, 155x106cm (Framed), Acrylic Print on Photograph, Giclee Print on Cotton Rag Paper (2nd Print) *Price: $35,000.00
*Price is subjected to change without further notice.
Biography
Born in 1957, Lee Wen was a Singaporean multidisciplinary artist working on social identity themes. After leaving a banking career to enroll at LASALLE College of the Arts, Lee graduated with a Masters of Fine Art in 2006. Best known for his Yellow Man series of work, Lee was one of the pioneers of Performance Art in Singapore.
Lee Wen relied on the strategic deployment of visual, kinesthetic symbols and signs in his works. Through various constructed personas, his works allowed visitors an insight into his roles as an artist. Lee had explored different strategies of time-based and performance art since 1989. Lee’s work had been strongly motivated by social investigations as well as inner psychological directions using art to interrogate stereotypical perceptions of culture and society.
Lee Wen’s essays, texts and investigations were an important reference, not only for Singaporean and Asian artists, but also for Performance art scholars and researchers worldwide.
Beyond his performance art, Lee was a multidisciplinary artist. To him, all his works irregardless of medium is about conveying a message to the audience by means of composing a picture, image or scene. Faced with the obstacle of battling with Parkinson’s disease, the artist’s body movements were increasingly limited, thus large paintings and drawings had become a feat to him. The gestures of marking and drawing lines across the blank spaces, the very act of painting and drawing was akin to a performance in itself. Despite these challenges, his two-dimensional works convey an overwhelming sense of optimism and perseverance.
Lee Wen was a contributing member in The Artists Village of Singapore and had been participating in Black Market international performance collective. Lee was also co-organiser of R.I.T.E.S. – Rooted in the Ephemeral Speak (2009), a platform to support and develop performance art practices, discourse, infrastructure and audiences in Singapore. In 2003, Lee spearheaded the Future of Imagination international performance art event, seeing the value of having an annual gathering of international artists in Singapore, to share a continuing interest in the cultural constructs of identity.
In 2005, Lee Wen was awarded the Cultural Medallion for his contributions to the development of Contemporary Art in Singapore and he also won the Joseph Balestier Award for the Freedom of Art in 2016. Lee Wen passed away in 2019.
Education
2006 | MA Fine Arts, LaSalle-SIA College of the Arts, Singapore
1992 | City of London Polytechnic, London, UK
1990 | LaSalle-SIA College of the Arts, Singapore
Exhibitions
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2017 | Merdeka Mereka, Grey Projects, Singapore
2017 | Birds, 3331 Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2015 | Songs Unsung, iPreciation, Singapore
2014 | Mirrors In The Dark, Grey Projects, Singapore
2014 | ‘Lee Wen at Art Basel, HK 2014’, Presented by iPreciation, Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre (HKCEC), Hong Kong
2012 | Lee Wen: Lucid Dreams In The Reverie Of The Real, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
2008 | Anthropometry Revision, Soo Bin Art Int’l, Singapore
2007 | Freedom to Daydream, Mothers of Imagination, Your Mother Gallery, Singapore
2004 | Unframed–7, P-10, Singapore
2003 | Strange Fruit, The Substation, Singapore
2002 | Everybody Should Be Happy, Utterly Art, Singapore
1997 | Hand-Made Tales, The Black Box, Theatre Works, Singapore
1995 | Neo-Baba, VA-nishiogi Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1993 | Journey of a yellow man no.3: DESIRE, The Substation, Singapore
Selected Group Exhibitions
2019 | SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
2018 | Children’s Festival: Small Big Dreamers, National Gallery Singapore, Singapore
2017 | SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now, The National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan
2015 | The Prudential Singapore Eye, Art Science Museum, SINGAPORE
2015 | ‘Secret Archipelago’, Palais De Tokyo, Paris, France
2015 | Whose Game is It?, Royal College Of Art, London, Curating Contemporary Art Exhibitions, England
2015 | (Art Garden) Le Printemps 2015 Gare Saint Sauveur, Lille, France
2015 | Do Disturb, Palais De Tokyo, Paris, France
2015 | Prudential Eyezone, Co-curated by ArtScience Museum START, Saatchi Gallery, London, England
2015 | The Esplanade Presents National Day Celebrations, Singapore
2015 | 2015 Artist Making Movement, 5th Asian Art Biennale, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts,Taichung, Taiwan, R.O.C
2015 | Kulstof 15 Performance Art Festival Nordkraft, Alborg, Denmark
2015 | BONE 18 Performance Art Festival Bern, Switzerland
2014 | The Roving Eye: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia, ARTER, Istanbul, Turkey
2014 | ‘Modern Love’, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore LASALLE College of the Arts’, Singapore
2014 | Roppongi Art Night, Roppongi Hills, Tokyo Midtown Plaza, Tokyo, Japan
2013 | Britto International Artists Workshop, Dhaka, Bangladesh
2013 | 7th Kuala Lumpur Triennial BARRICADE , Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2013 | Cascadence , Singapore Redux, Singapore
2013 | “The Realm in the Mirror, the Vision out of Image”, Suzhou Jinji Lake Art Museum, China
2013 | “Gu Yu International Performance Art Festival 2013”, Xi An,Shang Nan, Beijing, China
2013 | “Rethinking of Protocols-Us and/As Institutions’ curated by Biljana Ciric, Guangzhou Times Museum, Guangzhou, China
2013 | “Lit Up 2013”, Aliwal Art Center, Singapore
2013 | “The Artist, the Book and the Crowd”, The Substation, Singapore “Singapore Biennale 2013: If The World Changed”, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
2013 | “Concept Context Contestation: art & the collective”, Bangkok Art & Culture Centre, Bangkok, Thailand
2012 | “Wanderers 2 / Underground Site”, 4th International Performance Art Festival Toyama, Japan
2012 | “New Strange Faces”, Valentine Willie Fine Arts, Singapore
2012 | “The Lecher of Art” The Substation, Singapore
2012 | “14th Asiatopia International Performance Art Festival”, Bangkok, Thailand
2012 | “The First Venice International Performance Art Week”, Venice, Italy
2011 | 2011 R.I.T.E.S. “Rooted In The Ephemeral Speak” #01/2011, The Substation, Singapore
2011 | “This Is Performance Art”, Aberdeen and Glasgow, Scotland
2011 | “Negotiating Home, History & Nation: Two Decades of Contemporary Art from S.E. Asia, 1991– 2011”, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
2011 | “Video: An Art, A History”, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
2013 | Artist-in-Residence, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, U.S.A
2013 | Artist-in-Residence, Contemporary Art of Japan, Saitama, Japan
2008 | Artist-in Residence, Red & Grey Contemporary, Chengdu, China
2005 | Cultural Medallion, Singapore
2002 | Artist in Residence, La-Salle-SIA College of the Arts, Singapore
1998 | Artist in Residence (Asia Europe Ministerial Meeting, Cultural and Arts Program) supported by Visiting Arts, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Gasworks Studios, London, UK
Workshops and Seminars
2013 | School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, U.S.A.
2007 | School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
2006 | NRLA (National Review of Live Art) International Winter School, Glasgow, SCOTLAND
2006 | La-Salle-SIA College of the Arts, SINGAPORE
2006 | Nanyang College of Fine Art, SINGAPORE
2004 | Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, Tokyo, JAPAN
2004 | Hanoi University of Fine Arts, Hanoi, VIETNAM
2004 | University of Ulster, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
2003 | Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico City, MEXICO
2003 | Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, Tokyo, JAPAN
2002 | La-Salle-SIA College of the Arts, SINGAPORE
2002 | Musashino Art University, TOKYO
2001 | Musashino Art University, TOKYO
2001 | Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, Tokyo, JAPAN
2001 | La-Salle-SIA College of the Arts, SINGAPORE
2001 | Nanyang College of Fine Art, SINGAPORE
2000 | Nanyang College of Fine Art, SINGAPORE
2000 | La-Salle-SIA College of the Arts, SINGAPORE
1999 | La-Salle-SIA College of the Arts, SINGAPORE
1998 | Norwich College of Art and Design, NORWICH, UK
1996 | Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, Tokyo, JAPAN
Selected Public Collections
Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
National Gallery Singapore, Singapore
Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan
Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
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