Downloads - lee wen 李文

A Waking Dream- drawings and poetry,  Select Books, Singapore, 1981 A young man visionary dreams set him on his journey which has gone through various transformations. Lee is now known for his performance art working on an international circuit. To read this is to understand his idealistic rooted in the familiar yet daring avant-gardian tradition of William Blake, Herman Hesse, Paul Klee, John Lennon, Li Po, Albert Camus and other outsiders but with a Singaporean flavour of "obiang hip" as Lee himself put it. We sold few copies although we printed 1000, i bought one, my brother one, my best friend one, and 3 more by the publisher and his family...haha and the rest are in the national libraries depositories heehee... and when i returned from london Select books told me the remaining were sent for scrap...hoho so i decided to share it for free on the internet...huh hope yo like it." the author said happy go luckily thankful in technology that we can still distribute virtual copies. Amen
http://issuu.com/leewen/docs/awakingdream-leewen

Chinese Thought And Its Relationship to Portraiture: a comparative overview -


A comparative historical survey of how artists approach representation of self in painting in Chinese thought vis-a-vis Western thinking.
http://issuu.com/leewen/docs/chinese_thought_and_its_relationship_to_portraitur

The Republic of Daydreams - A tongue in cheek, surreal urban mythic take on the art world. Published in conjunction with his solo exhibition, “Freedom of daydreams, Mothers of imagination”, at Your Mother Gallery, 11 September to 9 October 2007.  Reflecting on “Anti-art” influences encounters in Singapore as well as internationally, a tall tale is spunned with light-hearted gaze. Satiric account of how new ideas in art evolved, explaining the motivations, reception or rejection in a make-believe world and wild tales of imagination. Pushing the limits of history and theory into poetic laughter ... or that was the attempt, no bull!
Include photographs by Lee Wen, with the special assistance of Chua Chye Teck. A limited edition of 500 copies were printed and distributed free. Ran out of them so here offered as PDFs.
ISBN 978-981-05-9112-0  
http://issuu.com/leewen/docs/republic_of_daydreams

Performance Art In Context: a Singaporean perspective - A critical survey of performance art based on personal experiences, reviewing complexities of the self as subject and use of one’s body as art form, material and representation within specific contexts of cultural location and time. The temporal ephemeral nature of performance art necessitates examining problems faced in documenting, collecting, preserving and archiving. What motivates artists to work in a temporal art form, which does not result in the making of a material art object? How does it continue to be represented? For those who had not seen the actual performances presented in the past how can one continue to discuss the relevance and contexts of those performances today? Should the works be preserved? Confronting these questions, performance art stakes its position as a valid fine art form in relation to more traditional media, asserting possibilities for future actions and directions to develop working in performance art and its significance to contemporary art discourse.
http://issuu.com/leewen/docs/performanceartsingaporeleewen

Anthropometry Revision : Lee Wen
Catalog launched in Singapore on occassion of a private performance revisiting a second time Yves Klein's “Anthropometries” (1960) with reference to Lee's personal quests in re-defining his identity as Singaporean Chinese descendent, contemporary contexts as well as within local conditions. The project question current trends of art on various trajectories. Some opening of discourse addressed in essays by Adele Tan, Ray Langenbach, Lukasz Guzek, Zha Changping and the artist.

http://issuu.com/leewen/docs/anthropometryrevision

"Lee Wen: Variations On The Exquisite Body" written by Lucy Davis, Ray Langenbach, Lee Weng Choy, Adele Tan and June Yap. This is the lead essay of "Singapore Contemporary Artists Series: Lee Wen: Lucid Dreams in the Reverie of the Real" a richly illustrated publication of the Singapore Art Museum. It accompanies the recent (20 April to 10 June 2012) solo exhibition of Lee Wen held at the Singapore Art Museum that charts the wide oeuvre of one of Singapore’s most internationally recognised artists. Written in the spirit of the collaborative, dialogical, experimental and playful ethos of Lee Wen, that also references the Surrealist game of The Exquisite Corpse.

http://issuu.com/leewen/docs/lee_wen-variation_body