Kang Seung Lee: Absence without leave

ISBN 978-0-9985006-1-4March 2017, English, 8.5 x 11 in, 28 pages, b&w, softcoverDesign: Sming Sming Books Kang Seung Lee's exhibition Absence without leave (2017) at Commonwealth & Council (Los Angeles) employs various display methods: scanned and enlarged photographs of drawings, printed fabric draped in the form of a chair, a framed drawing hung on a mural. Each image conjures the departed through absence. Lee has altered and redrawn iconic representations of male bodies in public and domestic spaces documented by photographers. In some photographs, the bodies remain anonymous (work by Alvin Baltrop, Leonard Fink, and William Yang); others profess an intimacy with their subject (portrait of David Wojnarowicz by Peter Hujar and Martin Wong by Peter Bellamy) or are examples of the artist’s oeuvre (Isaac Julien’s film noir staircase and Robert Mapplethorpe’s self-portrait). Kang Seung Lee (b. South Korea) is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. Kang ha