JIM LEE at Freight & Volume

Jim Lee, Untitled (In the Crease), 2009, oil enamel on canvas over honeycomb cardboard

Jim Lee, Untitled (Under Olive), 2008, 13 x 7 x 10 inches, acrylic & canvas over polystyrene

Jim Lee, Installation with Untitled (Hydropod) 2009, Untitled (Charlie's Atlas) 2009, Longest Hour 2008

Just opened at Freight and Volume on 24th Street is a whole new batch by Jim Lee, a collection of eccentrically beautiful objects, built in his trademark beguilingly offhanded fashion. As with all of Jim's exhibitions, the installation is an assertive aspect of the show, with the gallery space being altered in a manner consistent with the way the pieces are constructed. Rough plywood partitions create small niches around the entrance, a temporary drywall closes off the reception desk leaving a slim vertical portal to the back room. In the center of the space a diagonally placed plywood wall goes floor to ceiling, and is braced by a collection of jury rigged 2x4s. Within this space, the works are arranged to move the viewer up, down, around and through -- they are leaned against the wall or hung at varying heights singly and in groups creating distinctly odd and surprising synchopations and relations.

The pieces themselves occupy a strange ambiguous realm. They are formally simple and eloquent, with dynamic tensions between large color fields and small linear or geometric elements, smoothe surfaces and frayed edges, painted shapes and found configurations. Physically, they are down and dirty, seemingly quick and direct, with every aspect of their makeup left visible. Yet the method of their construction is invested with a ritualized specificity -- a deliberate and insistent scruffiness that reads as a sort of imperative, and emphasizes the process of making as pure transformative necessity. Each piece reveals itself as a reconfiguration of discarded (or saved) fragments, a poetic reordering of the most basic elements of the world.

Also present in Jim Lee's working method is a pervasive sense of play, and an abiding amusement with the serendipitous aspects of reality -- with the possiblity of finding some new kind of resonance in the most unlikely places. We can imagine him sporting a sly grin as he makes these funky objects, as he chops a corner out of a painting with a utility knife and then staples it roughly back into place. And it is that willingness to destroy or disregard the conventions, to look elsewhere, that constantly renews his work, keeping it on the edge of disintegration, unpredictable, and always thrilling to see. In the back room of the gallery, Jim has posted a small chunk of paper with a hand-lettered manifesto: "IF IT'S GOING TO BE SHIT, I'M GOING TO DOT THE I'S AND CROSS THE T'S". So there you go -- he transforms shit into THE SHIT.

ACCIDENT BLACKSPOTAt Freight and Volume

Keltie Ferris, Rock Steady, 2008, 32" x 26", oil & enamel on canvas

Installation with Fawn Krieger (floor), Ecke, 2007, 31" x 28.75" x 7.5", wood, vinyl flooring, hardware

Tamara Zahaykevich, Trill(m), 2007, 19" x 21" x 3.5", foam board, acrylic, paper, polystyrene, wood filler, glue

Named after the British term designating the site of an accident, Accident Blackspot is a new exhibition at Freight & Volume in Chelsea, curated by Jim Lee and Rob Nadeau. The show includes the work of 13 artists who work in a variety of approaches, but all with a particular emphasis on found or common materials, and casual execution. I’d say there are really 15 artists here, since the curators, although they do not include their own works, have made the installation one of the most distinctive aspects of the show. It is really as an installation that this show operates, minimizing the focus on individual works in favor of a total dynamic environment that is comprised of a collection of interacting works. The installation actually looks like a Jim Lee show, but using other artists’ pieces in place of Jim’s, with the same sly humor and offhanded materiality laced with inescapable formal eloquence. Not that the individual works are completely sublimated – eye catching pieces include a cast resin wall piece posing as a hunk of cardboard (complete with trompe l’oeil duct tape) by Ivin Ballen, a very chunky and colorful little oil painting by Ali Smith, a Wendy White painting with volley ball, and a beautiful lively canvas by Keltie Ferris. For me one of the standout moments is an oddly shaped floor piece by Fawn Krieger installed adjacent to a tiny photograph of what appears to be a gang rape scene, making vague unsettling and intriguing relations between the image in the photo and the sculptural configuration. My favorite work in the show is an extremely funky wall piece by Tamara Zahaykevich that looks to be made of a combination of stuff from the garbage, and has a playfully self-possessed and animated presence.

If there is a common aesthetic in this show, it is somehow related to a willingness to fail, or possibly the disregard of such determinations as success or failure. But these artists are not naïve, they are truly enamored with the ephemera they employ and the randomness they bring to their well-schooled and refined sensibilities. And in this exhibition, they end up looking elegant in spite of themselves.

JIM LEE Speaking at Marywood U.

Jim Lee, Untitled (Rust 2 Slit), 2007, acrylic & flashe on linen over wood, 11.25 x 14.5 x 9.25 in.

Jim Lee makes paintings that operate with one foot in the realm of sculpture. His pieces are always executed with a conscious offhandedness that puts the emphasis on materiality, and he often installs the work so that it interacts in quirky ways with the characteristics of specific spaces. In some sense perpetuating the legacy of Palermo, and early Tuttle, Lee's works possess and exude a quiet awareness, and a sly charm that pulls the viewer into their casual nuances. The total effect and presence of each work is often startling, and quite elegant given the sum of the raw materials and diminutive scale.
Jim will be speaking at Marywood University as part of the Distinguished Visiting Artist Lecture Series on Monday April 7 at 3:30. The talk is free and open to the public. For more info email me.