A TRIBUTE TO ISADORA DUNCAN, the solo show by Lei Benben, will be held by Don Gallery. This three-week show curated by Aimee Lin, shall exhibit both the latest video works and early stage photography works of the artist. It is a presentation of the artist’s practice in several years: the dialogue between the body and the nature. The artist transfers her own body as the media for perception, and creates new images through the perception and performance. Also, the exhibition dedicates to Isadora Duncan - the founder of the modern dance, to show the artist’s respect and enthusiasm to Duncan’s spirit.

Before she specialized in video art and photography, Lei Benben used to teach dancing which is always the origin of inspirations for her. She took up photography in 2004 and created her first series “Shadow of the Water” that won the “Curator Recommended Award” in China Pingyao International Festival. And then she stepped into video art in 2007. A TRIBUTE TO ISADORA DUNCAN is the first solo to show Lei Benben’s new attempts since 2013. By the dance languages, she produced videos involving the dialogue between the body and the nature, spiritual perception and performance. The four video works displayed in the main show room of the Gallery were all double-channel videos; one channel for recording the artist’s dancing actions surrounded by mountains, rivers and forests with a fixed camera; the other channel for recording the improvised motion images with the mobile phone camera. The photography works displayed in the other show room were from the artist’s early stage. They are a kind of experimental attempts of the dialogues between the photographer’s body and the nature or artificial environment.

Lei Benben’s creation is all about the beauty of images and rhythms of motion pictures. No matter photography works or video works are both involved with body actions and full music characters. Her works are her unique experience of the nature as well as dialogues between the spirit and the body. Lei Benben constructs a spiritual world full of intelligence.

Lei Benben had several domestic and abroad exhibitions like the solo show “Titled Horizon” at Bores-li Gallery in 2011, the first Super-Organism CAFAM Biennale 2011 in the Cafa Art Museum, the “Moving Image in China 1988-2011” in Mingsheng Art Museum, etc. Her works have been collected by institutional and personal collectors.

*image (left)
courtesy of the artist and Don Gallery