Lot 752: Lee Leenam (B. 1969)

Lee Leenam (B. 1969)
Two video installations: Chochungdo (Insects and Plants) of Shin Saimdang, 2007
Each inscribed on verso Shin-Chochungdo 2/10 2007 and signed in Chinese characters Lee Leenam
Video installation; video monitors in wood frames, video, length 5 minutes
13¾ x 11in. (35 x 28cm.) each (2)

Lee's video installation is an animated homage to two famous paintings by the Korean literata Shin Saimdang (1504-1551). Celebrated in her own time for her exquisite paintings of insects and plants, poems in Chinese and embroidered works, Shin may be better known as Korea's "Wise Mother" (Eojin Eomeoni), the guise in which she appears on a postal stamp and the 50,000-won note. Her name even appears on a line of women's makeup. Among the seven children, husband and parents to whom Saimdang devoted herself is her son, Yi I (Yulgok) (1536-1584), Korea's eminent Neo-Confucian scholar. Lee reinterprets the classical imagery in a unique fusion whereby the action suggested by the mimetic classical work is "realized" in contemporary media.

Lee has had ten solo exhibitions in New York, Seoul and Gwangju and has participated in two hundred group shows, including these in 2007: New York Asian Contemporary Art Fair; Tokyo International Art Contemporary; Beijing International Art Fair; and The New Stream of Asia, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe (ZKM), Germany.