JAE HOON LEE

Starkwhite is pleased to present Antarctic Fever by Korean-born, New Zealand-based artist Jae Hoon Lee from 18 September to 13 October 2012.

The works in Antarctic Fever add to the body of work created by Jae Hoon Lee over the past decade that engage the natural sublime and the technological sublime; that conflate high-tech artifice and monstrous bodily organicism; and that fuse vernacular experience with a sense of the religious or spiritual. They stem from a nomdic practice that takes him through different countries and cultures to create photographs and videos that move beyond the observations of an art tourist. They are filtered through an Eastern philospohical perspective and his experience of contemporary Korean culture, which results in a richly layered view of the world.

At first glance Jae Hoon Lee's images appear real. Their high level of detail makes us think that what we are looking at is true. It's not until we look closer that we notice their subtle tricks. Constructed from sometimes hundreds of images taken over periods of time, his source material is stitched together in Photoshop. By combining documentary photography and the fictional possibilities offered by new technologies Jae Hoon Lee sets up a compelling interplay of real and virtual experiences.

As Aaron Seeto observes in his essay Intimate Camera, “The digital space that Jae Hoon Lee's work occupies complicates the types of discrete cultural narrative which a lot of commentary on contemporary Asian art in places like Australia and New Zealand attempts to construct. The Asian-Australian, the Asian-American, the Korean-New Zealander: these monikers stand in as signifiers for a political discussion that only partially captures the reality of a cultural experience. In the case of Jae Hoon Lee, this digital space affords other types of networks to emerge, an accretion and also filtration of influences, as it progresses along its network, refining, shifting, changing how, or what it is an artist's practice ultimately means.”

Jae Hoon Lee was born in Korea and after completing high school he went to San Francisco to attend art school. A few years later he arrived in New Zealand to undertake post-graduate studies and this year completed his Doc FA at Auckland University's Elam School of Fine Arts. He has been represented in solo and thematic group exhibitions in New Zealand and overseas, including: Unguided Tours: The 2011 Anne Landa Award for New Media and Video, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2011); NOMAD, 4A, Sydney (2010); Ground Zero, Starkwhite, Auckland (2010); Daniel Crooks and Jae Hoon Lee, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2008); Jae Hoon Lee Project, Te Tuhi Centre for Contemporary Art, Pakaranga, New Zealand (2008); Asia Pacific Documentary & Video, Performance Space, Sydney, Australia (2006); Open Late, IMA, Brisbane, Australia (2006); Square2, City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (2005); Hotbed, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand (2005); Asian Traffic Beijing, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (2005); Break Shift, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand (2004); Greenhouse, Frankfurter Welle, Germany (2004); Asian Traffic Shanghai, Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China (2004); Pressing Flesh, the New Gallery (Auckland Art Gallery) New Zealand (2003); Alive! Still Images into the Twenty-First Century, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand (2001); and Flesh and Fruity, Artspace, Auckland, New Zealand (2001).

The artist wishes to acknowledge the support of Antarctica New Zealand with the exhibition. Each year Antarctica New Zealand invites artists to become honorary Arts Fellows and travel to the frozen continent to undertake specific projects. Jae Hoon Lee visited Antarctica as an Arts Fellow in January 2012.