The last piece of cloud: Lee Kit Solo Exhibition

The post-punk and techno music coming from a laptop echoes in the exhibition space, light and shadow engaged in a pas de deux. Rhythms rise and fall, interspersed by the clangs of tools and sounds of tape being torn off: Lee Kit always manages to conjure an atmosphere where he is most at ease making art.

His keen observation of space, object, and materiality is manifested in a careful selection of everyday images, projected onto found objects. Amid the gleaming light and lurking shadow, these images morph into soft-focus slides, each overflowing the edges of the objects arranged in seemingly random order, at times growing — beyond the borders of the surface that carries them — to overlap, ultimately forming a remnant of light, a residue necessary like air. The spur-of-the-moment phrases and sentences in the projection exude a sense of shrewdness, incubated over time, born out of intuition. Or perhaps, they evoke something akin to romantic cleanliness, punctuated by irritation.

Text/Lee Kit

1.

The latest joke I heard: He had forgiven himself.

2.

This is the last piece of cloud: the cloud does not speak. B gazes at this last piece of cloud in silence. Behind him are a few people babbling on. One of them is particularly loud. B is thinking of C and D, who are in fact sitting not far behind him. All three of them look at the cloud not far in the sky, thinking actually of each other. They probably know what they would do in the days ahead. Watching the last piece of cloud, they await  the next piece of cloud that will never show. Gently B stares at the cloud.

Humor sometimes takes the form of silence. This is when the line between humor and anger begins to blur: the same sense of quiet and calm. Emotion is just a reminder.

3.

A quick interruption. A dishonest work usually subsists in fear, trepidation, and false confidence. This is no less true of a fraud.

4.

When it comes to small things, people do not always come up with beautiful associations. B seems to have managed a new skill to evade or cope with this situation. It occurred to him that he had managed this skill at a time when his body and mind were both empty and dull. The moment this sense of void materializes, the chest, the belly, and the back of the neck succumb easily to emotion. The guilt that follows feels bigger than the sky but crammed into a box that sees no edges. It is merely a sense of breath, just a little out of sync.

One day, he both eluded and confronted this situation, taking a bow while fixing his gaze. He realized this is a permanent scar from the loss of the sense of pain. He should not take himself too seriously, or whatever he has for that matter.

5.

If ecstasy would eventually happen, it should be feathery, almost soundless. Similar to grief. Or a walk.

Lee Kit

Born in 1978 in Hong Kong, Lee Kit lives and works in Taiwan.

Recent solo exhibitions include: Kuandu Museum of Art, Taipei, Taiwan (2022); West, Den Haag, the Netherlands (2021); Art Sonje Centre, Seoul, Korea (2019); Hara Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2018); Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy (2018); OCAT, Shenzhen, China (2018); TheCube, Taipei, Taiwan (2017); S.M.A.K., Ghent, Belgium (2016); Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, U.S. (2016); Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2015); and the 55^th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2013); Shanghai Minsheng Museum of Art, Shanghai, China (2012); Western Front, Vancouver, Canada (2011); Para/Site, Hong Kong (2007), among others.

Group shows include: Shimmer, Rotterdam, the Netherlands (2022); Kunstverein in Hamburg, Germany (2021); C-Lab, Taipei, Taiwan (2020); Lyon Biennial, France (2019); Honolulu Biennial, Hawaii (2019); Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2017); Kathmandu Triennale, Nepal (2017); Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, Taiwan (2016); National Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic (2016); Sharjah Biennial, UAE (2015); Ural Industrial Biennial, Yekaterinburg, Russia (2015); Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden Baden, Germany (2014); Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, the Netherlands (2014); Hugo Boss Asia Art, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2013); MoMA, New York, U.S. (2012); New Museum, New York, U.S.(2012), among others.