For well over a decade, Nikki S. Lee has been mashing up cultural identity with social cliques. Her two extended series: Projects (1997-2001) and Parts (2002-2005) dealt with Ms. Lee's questioning of identity, class and the power of women over men. Parts placed her in various social scenes (lesbians, gangs, senior citizens) and in Parts, Ms. Lee posed with men who were cropped out of the picture (save for an arm here or a leg there). While some of the images from Projects felt a little too "freshman college sociology classy," the Parts series on the other hand, deftly empowers Lee's "characters" in the images creating a fuller world. Both bodies of work fell deep into the realm of the snapshot aesthetic and helped to bridge the world of completely staged photo productions (Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdosn) with the now ubiquitous world of scripted naturalism.
Lee's most recent work (exhibited at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York) looks to expand Lee's definition of identity and removes any cultural context from the pictures entirely. The Show, Layers, consists of photographs made from layered street portraits of Lee from major cities throughout world. In the work, Lee is investigating her own identity through how others perceive/see her. From the press release:
I am interested in identity as it is affected or changed through social contexts, cultural categories or personal relationships. This interest began through personal experience. I realized that I changed between my surroundings in New York and Seoul, depending on whether I was with my family or friends. So before I was thinking about "who I am" I first started thinking about "where I am".
I agree with Lee's observation that current geographic location can affect our individual identities and that we all probably shift "who we are" depending upon "where we are." I feel it's a survival instinct; we have distinct selves that is in line with where we happen to be: our work-selves, parents-selves, tourist-selves, etc. Unfortunately, Lee's Layers is not giving me enough clues and in the end may be a bit too subtle.
The drawings that Lee commissioned from the dozens of street artists were all made on paper Lee provided (so that she could layer them to form the final image). There is no indication of where the drawing was made (except in the titles) and the photographs hide a bit of the nuances in the line work of the drawings themselves, further removing the portraitist from the equation. In the studio Lee places the drawings on on top of another and backlights them to reveal the different source drawings. Here is where things get a bit grey for me. I wonder how much of Lee's "studio-self" is affecting the order of the layers. Are the layers placed chronologically, aesthetically, by order of likeness or skill? I realize that Lee is not conducting a scientific inquiry into the role of perception and its affects on individualty, but whatever system she employs to arrange the drawings certainly adds another layer to the veil of indentity.
In the end, the works (beautiful large scale black and white prints), reveal more about the skill of the street artist than they do about Lee as an individual. They also display the uncanny influence of western style drawing techniques since there is a sameness to the drawings. You'd be hard pressed to pick out the drawing made in Madrid from the one made in Bangkok based on technique alone. Then again, perhaps Lee is saying more about our global identity than her individual-self. That her transformation through the perception of others thickens her skin and is another Layer that must be shed to find the true self.
The drawings that Lee commissioned from the dozens of street artists were all made on paper Lee provided (so that she could layer them to form the final image). There is no indication of where the drawing was made (except in the titles) and the photographs hide a bit of the nuances in the line work of the drawings themselves, further removing the portraitist from the equation. In the studio Lee places the drawings on on top of another and backlights them to reveal the different source drawings. Here is where things get a bit grey for me. I wonder how much of Lee's "studio-self" is affecting the order of the layers. Are the layers placed chronologically, aesthetically, by order of likeness or skill? I realize that Lee is not conducting a scientific inquiry into the role of perception and its affects on individualty, but whatever system she employs to arrange the drawings certainly adds another layer to the veil of indentity.
In the end, the works (beautiful large scale black and white prints), reveal more about the skill of the street artist than they do about Lee as an individual. They also display the uncanny influence of western style drawing techniques since there is a sameness to the drawings. You'd be hard pressed to pick out the drawing made in Madrid from the one made in Bangkok based on technique alone. Then again, perhaps Lee is saying more about our global identity than her individual-self. That her transformation through the perception of others thickens her skin and is another Layer that must be shed to find the true self.
