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On the occasion of the 53rd International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, the Taiwanese artist Lee Sun-Don presents the "exhibition in progress" entitled "Create & Change: Internal = External, 1=∞". For such an innovation, the exhibition is greatly acclaimed and officially patronized by the City of Venice, Province of Venice, and Region of Veneto, (Veneto is the region in the Northeast of Italy and its captial is Venice.), greatly enhancing the international reputation of Chinese artists.
Lee's exhibition, curated by Professor Achille Bonito Oliva (Director of Venice Biennale in 1980 and 1993), will be a multimedia synthesis of all art languages, incorporating performance art, video art, and conceptual art, in conjunction with traditional artwork display. The exhibition aims to develop an interactive relationship with the viewer in order to spread universal harmony through the cosmic energy generated by artwork signs, the artist's performance and the viewer's contemplation.
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Based on spiritual enlightenment, Lee's totemic artwork captures Zen wisdom and the ineffable harmony of the universal energies. More impressively, Lee develops totemic aesthetics that challenge, transcend, and open up the horizon of contemporary art. According to Achille Bonito Oliva: "The Eastern culture that animates Sun-Don's sign enables the image to convey a sense of life and, at the same time, the idea of a concrete measure. The whole composition is supported by a sort of abstract-concrete substance that is never metaphoric, but is always sustained by its inherent autonomy. The work of Lee Sun-Don creates its own original and distinctive style through the combination of several philosophies in a language that escapes its formal order".
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Outline of the Exhibition
The exhibition space will be arranged into the artist's studio. The artist will appear personally in the on-site studio without a fixed schedule to perform the impromptu paintings for the exhibition. Besides demonstrating the entire painting process, Professor Lee will also share with viewers how he opened up this unprecedented path of artistic creation based on his spiritual enlightenment. As the paintings completed impromptu increase, Prof. Lee will keep changing the spatial arrangement of the artworks in the exhibition site for a creative display space and environment. The artist's impromptu creation process will also be recorded entirely by the video camera and be played in the exhibition venue.
Besides Professor Lee's impromptu painting demonstration, another mission of this exhibition is to realize "1=∞". During the entire exhibition, the video camera will be set up for the on-site assistants to interview each viewer and record each viewer's statement on their feelings and thoughts after reviewing the artworks. The recording of the interviews will be played to the public in the exhibition space. In this way, even if Professor Lee has completed the entire painting, the interviews and the recordings of the interview within the half-year exhibition period will continue to make a huge performance art. The interactive relationship with the viewer will enable the achievement of "1=∞" (Infinity). That is to say, the artist himself as "1" develops to interact with viewers as "∞" (Infinity) to make a presentation together. In this way, all the viewers participating in the interview become the artists performing in the performance art, and a part of the exhibition "Create & Change: Internal = External, 1=∞". What is achieved is that every viewer entering from the EXTERNAL WORLD into the exhibition becomes the core of the INTERNAL WORLD of the art exhibition. In other words, every viewer becomes the ARTIST himself, and a part of the ART itself.
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First Asian Artist Ever to be Invited to Hold a Solo Exhbitiion of His Oil Paintings in the Venice Biennale
Lee's solo exhibition at the 53rd Venice Biennale is curated by Achille Bonito Oliva. Oliva is a internationally reputed art curator; he directed the Venice Biennale of 1980 and 1993. As author of many published essays, he was awarded high recognitions in the international art fields.
Lee's artistic style and innovative idea about the "solo exhibition" was greatly appreciated by Professor Achille Bonito Oliva who especially wrote an academic article to Venice Biennale orgnaizing commitee. Oliva remarks Lee Sun-Don as a talented all-round artist. Oliva recommends Lee to the Venice Biennale for Lee's artistic depth and breadth reminding us of the inspirations revealed in the works of Balla, Kandinskij, Klee, Arp, Mirò and Matisse.
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Lee's solo exhibition, as part of collateral events, was scrutinized and selected by the director and committee of the 53rd Venice Biennale. In the past only a few artists enjoyed such an emblematic honor to hold a solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale - all of whom, such as Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, and Takashi Murakami, have directed new trends in the world art. Lee is the first Asian artist ever to be invited to hold a solo exhbitiion of his oil paintings in the Venice Biennale.
The Venice Biennale's selection of Lee's |
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proposal indicates that Lee's artistic originality and creation, called "totemic energy oil painting," has been recognized and will be the source of inspirations for future development of modern art. Such a recognition is regarded an supreme honor in Chinese community.
Venice Biennale, the world's oldest international Art Biennale, is advancing toward the 53rd exhibition, which will run June 7th to November 22nd, 2009. Ever since its foundation in 1895, Venice Biennale has been facilitating aesthetic dialogues between countries and promoting forward-looking artistic trends. It has now become the most influential and largest-scale international art fair of the world, involving more than 70 participation countries, hundreds of participation artists, and millions of visitors. Regarded as a prominent stage for the debut artists as well as for the established masters, Venice Biennale has attracted reputed curators, gallery directors, art critics, connoisseurs, and mass media across the globe to participate, glossed as the "aesthetic Olympics" that celebrate cultural diversity and exchange. |
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