Kyu Sang Lee

Table of Contents
3 March - 9 April 2023
Bistro 21, Leipzig.
a solo exhibition by Kyu Sang Lee.

Supported by:
Stadt Leipzig,
Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen.

Kyu Sang Lee's work explores the intangible through meticulous and careful
interrogations of form, shape, sound and visual codes. Born in Seoul, South
Korea, Lee moved to South Africa when he was 12, where he later completed
school and an undergraduate Fine Arts degree at the University of Cape Town’s
Michaelis School of Fine Art. In 2018, he moved to Leipzig to pursue master’s
in photography, which was then interrupted by conscription obligations in
South Korea, catalyzing an enforced rupture but also a period of reframing.
Through his work, he begins to explore and untangle his experiences of each
locus, while the works intentionally obscure and resist autobiography. Table of
Contents is a solo presentation of Lee’s work and is both an introduction to and
reflection of his photographic explorations to date, as well as an offering of
ongoing experiments and contemplations in his more recent multimedia work.
The work unfolds across a variety of media; having worked in predominantly
black and white photography, this exhibition is a departure towards new forms
and visual explorations in constructed imagery.

Writing on Lee’s work is both futile and integral to accessing the philosophy that
binds it. The attempt recalls Tolstoy’s musings on the understandings of beauty
in relation to art: “as is always the case, the more cloudy and confused the
conception conveyed by a word, with the more aplomb and self-assurance do
people use that word, pretending that what is understood by it is so simple and
clear that it is not worthwhile even to discuss what it actually means”1. In writing
and reading about Lee’s practice, a kind of self-assurance is necessary, yet the
writing must relinquish itself to the acceptance of the obscure and the mystery
layered into the work; that any attempt to explicate may lead one down a
rabbit hole of further quandary, and yet this is half of the wonder of it. The
images - moving and still - are grounded in an intellectual interaction of research
and response which leads the viewer through a maze of questioning and
reflection. Is it so simple as a button that is pressed with no outcome, seen in
Life 1&2? Is outcome and action only measurable by a mirrored reaction. And
when so much art today is reliant on an explanation, Lee challenges both the
prospective writer and the invited viewer to accept meaning or the dissolution
of interpretation through written language and instead give in to universality
rather than specificity.

Lee’s preoccupations endeavor to remain as universal as possible while also
interfacing with the locality of his current environment is evidenced through
his abstracted works. The act of abstraction of highly particular imagery is
translated altered and transmuted through photographic software to obscure
and reconstitute the image into a place-less landscape, as seen in Sigil No.
1 and Instant Crush. In the making of these new landscapes, Lee calls to the

illusory power of images and how they are communicated through interpretation
and connotation – highlighting Graham Clarke’s warning or reminder that “to
read a photograph, then, is to enter into a series of relationships which are
'hidden’, so to speak, by the illusory power of the image before our eyes”.2
The location of Table of Contents, in the city of Leipzig, becomes a grounding
factor across the exhibition. The musical history of Leipzig was a significant
motivation for Lee’s moving to the city and has influenced much of his selection
in the musical investigations in his work. Through music, Lee offers a mode of
communication and interaction at once technically inaccessible but emotively
resonant. The work makes use of the structure and rules of music as a universal
means of communication. As he understands, “the style of music varies from
country to country, but nevertheless, the basis for all music is not different
because music cannot be preceded by the science and laws of sound. Through
images, sounds, and installations, my works explore the conflicts, limitations,
and beyond of multiple languages”. All music is grounded in rhythm and all
rhythm is centered around the counting of time; through this universal truth it
becomes possible to build new forms that subscribe to these rules. As such,
music can be alternate to linguistic communication, offering a set of codes
that can communicate differently. He explains: “music challenges the implicit
authority of logical and linguistic languages through a set of nonverbal
languages”.

The repetition of black and white imagery tests boundaries of understanding,
assumption and challenges the embedded trust in photography that beguiles
the viewer with his subtle and impactful images.Through the investigations he
presents, he can suggest a new life through paint or print, reorganize their
relationship to each other, and through this process of re- composition, give
them a new purpose. Returning often to the grid, Lee’s work presents repetition
as a kind of meditative exercise that follows the likes of early photographic
pioneers such as Eadweard Muybridge or Bernd and Hilla Becher. The grid
format allows for a kind of performative documentation, tracing gesture, time,
and progression across different subjects. Across the grid, Lee transforms
sequences into rhythms, illustrating a musical score or suggesting the interaction
of chemicals in photographic processes. In the negative spaces across the grid,
there is space for expansion towards the cosmic – in orbits, wheels, cycles.
By layering materials and concept, his work supersedes the definite and
encourages reflection. By incorporating defunct or reconstituted tech, he reminds
the viewer that “human toolmaking is not limited to the stone instruments of our
early ancestors or to the sleek gadgets produced by the modern tech industry.
Human cultures also create symbolic devices that structure society. Race, to be
sure, is one of our most powerful tools - developed over hundreds of years,
varying across time and place, codified in law and refined through custom,
and tragically, still considered by many people to reflect immutable differences
between groups”.3 Thus, coding is significant in the work, it allows for glimpses
into a kind of pattern, or puzzle, piecing together aspects of his thinking and
highlights the fusing of influences and cultures across subliminal and metaphoric
ques. Veering away from singularly monochromatic works, this exhibition
presents colour through the recurring green, in the exhibition. Lee explains that
“The colour green appears throughout my works for this show. Paying an ode to
it, this so- called chroma key green has a specific purpose to show anything else
it desires to show other than its colour itself”. Unafraid of contradictions, Lee
has learnt to revel in the juxtaposition of politics, access, cultures and discourse
he’s been surrounded by.

Intention remains a critical element to Lee's practice, evoking Tolstoy's remarks:
“Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is a great matter... The
destiny of art in our time is to transmit from the realm of reason to the realm of
feeling the truth”.4 It is through the aesthetic and compositional pleasure present
in each of his works that solace can be found - in the subdued, subliminal
poking fun at technology and its effects, which each combine to transmit a
sense of truth translated through the lens of his thinking. Lee presents work
which asks for introspection, playfulness, and humility. As such, this exhibition
is the culmination of many explorations Lee has embarked on physically and
intellectually - across disciplines, geographies, and socio-political realities. - Clare Patrick