ART
Sam Samore, Xie Lei |
Written 30 January |
Monday 14 September, 10:00Galerie Anne de Villepoix, 75003 [map]Sam Samore, Xie Lei
It was at the University of Wisconsin, where Sam Samore studied joint psychology, art and cinema, that he produced at the start of the 70s his first series of black and white photography entitled “The Suicidist”. The auto fiction work was not without its parallels to the work of
Cindy Sherman, an artist of whom he admired. Later he created a series inspired by fairytales entitled “The Murdered Brother”. His narration, investigations and work already leaning towards the idea of “me” as fiction.
In 1974 he moved to San Francisco and developed numerous projects alternating between painting, installations and conceptual works. He started a virtual gallery, and under the pseudonym of Jeanine Boudreau, created a fictional work of hyper reality portraiture. In the same year he began to publish artist books of fiction and tales (Tangled Web of Erotic Savage Cunning, 1994 ; Sumptuous Fire of the Stars, 1996 ; and more recently Between the Silence, 2007) and photography books. He also produced short films (On Fame, 1977 ; Funk Lessons with Adrian Piper, 1983).
In 1980 with the « situations » series he initiated a work in collaboration with different photographers. He selected and reworked the images that he transformed into a fragmentary narrative. The face and body are the paradisiacal countries he explores; fetishism, fantasy, dream like worlds that look at death whilst retaining the eloquence and solemnity linked to the canons of classic beauty; black and white images of “vast spaces absorbing the projection of our desires and our fears”. In the street, on the walls and windows of the museums he writes words and fragments of mysterious phrases evoking the place of the work or a known or unknown person. Mixing classic form and contemporary expression, poetry and literature, cinema and painting, Sam Samore accentuates the “schizophrenic” character of each of the employed mediums in order to reveal their multiple ambiguities.
You may be surprised by what you think you see in Xie Lei’s paintings. Skulls resembling eggs in a nest, a rat running around a skull, a wild animal, mouth open, swallowing another skull, absurd undergrowth? In the canvases of Xie Lei, each element is recognisable and identifiable but their combination is impossible, the whole becomes unexpected and unreal. Each motif is in fact only a plaything and a pretext. The description loses its sense and becomes supernatural and dream like. The familiar dissolves into a troubling fiction.
Having studied in Peking and then Paris and New York Xie Lei is able to play with Chinese tradition in contemporary western society. Preferring painting and belonging to the new generation, Lei offers paintings which refuse message and slogan. He is concerned by his country, his history, its age old culture but doesn’t make it a standard. His subjects are universal, questioning the world, and our era. His works are never immediately obvious, direct, or directional. He provides keys to his audience who enter with imagination and follow their own path.
| What: | Sam Samore, Xie Lei |
| When: | Monday 14 September, 10:00 |
| Where: | Galerie Anne de Villepoix, 43 rue de Montmorency 75003 [map] |
| Transport: | Rambuteau, Arts et Metiers, Etienne Marcel |
| Cost: | 0EUR |
| Phone: | +33(0)1 42 78 32 24 |
| Email: | info@annedevillepoix.com |
| Web: | www.annedevillepoix.com |
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