DOOSAN Gallery New York is pleased to announce Lee Wan's "made in" from October 9th through November 6th, a solo exhibition that looks at contemporary society through a post-colonial perspective.
Lee Wan views the products made within the capitalist system as results of human labor exploitation and focuses on how large structures like capitalism influence and transform individuals and communities.
"made in" series is an attempt to understand contemporary phenomena using eco¬nomic and historic facts as foundations, and it contains the artist's intention to understand nations, international relations, as well as individual human relationships that are under a new liberalist structure from a macro point of view.
This exhibition will comprise of four parts of the "made in" series, which is a video work containing footages of the artist himself actually in the process of producing specialty items while staying in places like Taiwan, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Thailand, as well as two drawings.
In order to produce "one spoon of sugar," the artist lived and labored for two months in the sugar cane farms in the outskirts of Taiwan, culminating in the video piece made in Taiwan. In Taiwan's past, sugar export was the driving force of Taiwan's rapid economic development, as well as the major item of exploitation during Japanese colonization of Taiwan.
Through the footages of the artist cultivating rice in Cambodia, manufacturing silk in Thailand, and processing gold in Myanmar, Lee presents an honest view into how the vestiges of colonialism in Third World countries are currently operating within their new liberalist economies.
Lee Wan (b. 1979) received his B.F.A in Sculpture from Dongguk University in Seoul, Korea. He has had solo exhibitions at Project Space SARUBIA (2014, Seoul, Korea), Art Space Pool & GGull (2011, Seoul, Korea), Total Museum of Contemporary Art, the room (2009, Seoul, Korea). His works have also included in group exhibitions at Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art (2014, Seoul, Korea), Absolute Art Space (2013, Tainan, Taiwan), Jim Tompson Art Center (2013, Bankok, Thailand), DOOSAN Gallery (2013, Seoul, Korea), Gallery Hyundai (2012, Seoul, Korea), Sungkok Art Museum (2012, Seoul, Korea), Hangaram Art Museum (2011, Seoul, Korea), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (2010, Gwacheon, Korea).
