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21/2/2008

Tim Lee

Cohan and Leslie, New York

Cohan & Leslie is pleased to present our third solo exhibition of Vancouver artist Tim Lee.

With sources that range from Johann Sebastian Bach to Steve Martin and Neil Young, the exhibition will feature a trio of diptychs which imagine the recreation of seminal moments in classical music, slapstick comedy and seventies rock. Thematically oriented around the premise of remaking artworks that, likewise, are remakes themselves, the central work in the show is Goldberg Variations, Aria, BWV 988, Johann Sebastian Bach, 1741 (Glenn Gould, 1981), a two-channel video installation that presents the artist deftly playing the aria of Bach's compostion on the piano. In remaking Glenn Gould's 1981 remake of his own 1955 version of Bach's 1741 original, Lee, who cannot play piano, recorded his left and right hands playing the composition separately on video. After editing the hundreds of short takes together to create a seamless musical montage, the combined left and right channels are presented on two monitors, set side-by-side, in order to complete the stereo illusion of a skillful performance.

Conceived as part of a hypothetical series of remakes that perpetuate itself into the future, Untitled (The Pink Panther, 2092) are two photographs of the artist seemingly taking a photograph of himself. Staged in a Dan Graham-like mirror pavilion, the twin images of the artist—in both portrait and profile—depicts his reflection infinitely regressing into space. A comic travesty on optics and proper names, the diptych presents the artist, who is Korean Canadian, re-enacting Steve Martin, an American who himself re-enacts Peter Sellers, an Englishman who first assumed the French persona of Inspector Clouseau.

My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) / Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black), Neil Young, 1979 consists of two photographs that feature the artist reimagining Neil Young during the recording of his live concert album "Rust Never Sleeps". In one photo the artist is seated, holding an acoustic guitar, and in the other he is standing upright with an electric guitar. Each are shot from high above, capturing the artist's dematerialized shadow thrown on the floor. Invoking the creative restlessness and self-reflexivity that characterize Young's double variations of the same song, the twin images are presented in the gallery inverted from each other, representative of two sides of one record.

Tim Lee was recently the subject of a solo exhibition at Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver, who will publish a monograph covering Lee’s work from 2001 to the present and featuring texts by Jörg Heiser, Jens Hoffmann, Monika Szewczyk and Michael Turner. Last fall he was the Capp Street artist in residence at the CCA Wattis Institute in San Francisco, where his work will be on display through January 2009. He will also be the subject of solo shows this spring at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston and Johnen Galerie, Berlin. As well, Lee will participate in the Biennale of Sydney, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, this June.

Opening: Friday, February 22 from 6-8pm

Cohan and Leslie
138 Tenth Avenue - New York
The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 to 6pm.
Free admission

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