Li Songsong (previously) has long focused his practice on translating archival images, whether portraits printed in newspapers or still images in films. The Chinese artist is interested in the way memories change over time, and how our clarity of detail becomes blurred when we reflect on a moment in the past.
His new work, history paintingtakes a similar technical approach, although rather than explaining specific scenes, Lee ventures into the abstract. Broad layers of impasto cover the large-format canvas, creating a cacophony of colors and textures that seem to expand upwards while simultaneously pulling downwards. As a video of a studio tour shows, the artist works from top to bottom, adding one thick mark on top of another in a grid fashion.
Pace Gallery, which represents Lee, shared that history painting He reflects more on his relationship with the medium than on any particular visual source, although given his past work it’s hard not to try to find definition in the composition. For example, clustered ridges of paint might evoke a mass of bodies huddled together, their backs to the viewer as they move toward an unknown destination. For Lee, these brushstrokes, while abstract, do retain a sense of action and autonomy, describing them as “active and idiosyncratic” even as they are covered over again and again.
history painting Will be on display in New York through December 20th.
