Little Blue Box

Units Of Measure, United Talent Agency, LA 2022

The Amateur Figure One Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris

‘Blank Verse Blanket Man’. Original Score for British Art Show

Original score and Performance for opening of London Gallery Weekend, 2022

‘The Minimum’, Opening show for London Gallery Weekend 2022

Like the individual body, the collective body has been impacted by the pandemic and the social distancing measures it imposed. Our view of bodies existing together in a single space has changed and the beauty, strength and energy they develop now seem all the more significant. In addition, the divide between those who call for total individual freedom and those who seek a collective body more than ever representative of a truly safe space has become more pronounced.

The collective body can be contemplated or considered a community space in which to mingle, gather and build relationships. 
At the heart of many of the works presented is the attempt to go beyond individuality, the complexity of today’s world being too much for the concept of individual freedom as a power to act, and requiring collective action.

En masse, Corps Collectifs, Move 2022 Festival - Centre Pompidou

Lehmann Maupin Seoul presents Recombinant. “Interaction with mental health is important in art and still dominates most of the creative process. I have no obligation to progress and illuminate this topic in Korea. Still, if I focus on expressing alienation or even something unsophisticated, sick, or ugly through my work, interest in this kind of outsider art will increase. I believe positive outcomes will occur when artists are recognised as valuable beyond their pathological personal history.”
     – Keunmin Lee, May 12, 2022

A new sound piece En masse (collective body)(2022) can be heard throughout the exhibition. Created by  collaborator, composer Lily Oakes, the work features sound samples from hospitals and other institutions, such as the buzzing of electric lighting, 
In the lead up to the show, relating to the tragedy which occurred in Seoul’s Itaewon district during the period, in which over 150 people died and many more were injured in a crowd surge. In the piece, El-Sayegh’s voice reads a set of instructions which circulated online in the aftermath, as to how to move to avoid being asphyxiated in similar circumstances. The work reflects the experience of attempting to understand such a shocking and tragic event

Recombinant,  Lehmann Maupin Seoul, Nov 3 – Dec 10, 2022

Overbeck-Gesellschaft – Kunstverein Lübeck presents Enfleshing, the first solo exhibition in Germany. Situated in both the Overbeck-Pavillon and in St. Petri Church, this expansive presentation brings new works, created by the artist for these two sites, including large-scale paintings and installations, moving-image and sound works. 
Enfleshing denotes giving bodily form to something. In the context of the presentation within a church, this choice of title holds distinctly religious connotations of the spirit-become-flesh, combining close-up images of human torsos with electric lights, referencing themes of gender and the body, as well as histories of how philosophy and theology relate to the physical world.
Enfleshing also refers to a broader, long-running line of enquiry which  infuses a variety of forms and media - that of the body in its many forms; in society; in science; in eroticism; as metaphor; as pathology; as an unruly object. 
Made up of disparate fragments, with the task of the artist being to attempt to combine these fragments, always imperfectly, into a coherent whole. In St. Petri Church, large paintings composed of latex, silk and muslin, draped from the pillars and spreading across the floor, form a flesh-like ‘tunnel’ which visitors enter, accompanied by a collaged sound work, created by the artist in collaboration with composer Lily Oakes.
This enveloping of material is described as a ‘reskinning’ of the church, a gesture toward making it blank and neutral, erasing the symbolic and historical connotations with which such a space is loaded. But this neutrality is fictional: the paintings, are on closer inspection, not white at all, but densely layered with  different tones, collaged with fragments of material collected in the artist’s studio, such as scraps of packaging, newspapers, cleaning rags, and artificial bank-notes, asking us to question whether we are all on the same ‘ground’ to begin with, and who is seen as ‘neutral’.

The use of latex, also holds complex symbolism. Drawn to the material for its curious qualities - being organic, yet often appearing synthetic; preserving matter, while itself always in decay. As a commodity, latex also has a fraught lineage, with colonial rubber plantations being sites of extraction, exploitation and violence in Africa, Asia and South America.

Enfleshing Overbeck - Gesellschaft – Kunstverein Lübeck Feb - April 2023

''For sound to equate to a feeling, there is a 'removal' process. Whatever is left, is where i find meaning. This i try to convey, using sound quite literally. Currently this is my process, in music.''

‘With artifice devalued; pure, raw emotion is characteristic’. 
Using classical production techniques alongside influences in many areas of music, animation/ film scores etc, there is an emptiness of space integral to the minimalism of the work, uncovering a 'real', is fundamental to this process. 

Booking (Worldwide excluding North America)ITB: lucia@itb.co.uk 
ICM: Assist.BGaeta@icmpartners.com
Meraki: agris@merakimodels.com

L I L Y O A K E S M U S I C

Popular tracks