Philip Lee explores the male body in his live performance
Live art: East Wing Collection April Opening, East Wing, Somerset House, London, April 25 - 26 2009
When Philip Lee performed for East Wing VIII at Somerset House last year, the first hour of his performance involved standing in a small black circle, stripping and covering his body in white paint from his feet upwards, adding a final flourish of white talcum powder to complete his self-decoration.
He then moved to a larger spot, where he spent ten minutes shifting in line with the angle of two giant clock hands leaning on pillars either side of the space before washing the paint off, putting his clothes back on and promptly leaving the stage.
It wouldn’t have been shocking to regular followers of Lee – in 2007 he spent seven days in various nude painted poses in a covered outdoor courtyard at Central Saint Martins, and before that he’d presented himself to the public on a box draped in birthing pool liner at The Arches in London, allowing his audience to colour him with liquid clay.
You might have guessed, then, that the inspirational ceramics teacher from the University of Westminster isn’t one to shy from using his body as human sculpture, starting when he emerged from a sand tomb in 1999 and progressing to using his body as a paint brush and hanging nine slab torsos on wires at the University.
His experiments aim to explore ideas of masculinity and the deterioration of the body, which he feels is a link between our internal and external worlds.
“We all have an ordinary and an extraordinary body,” Lee has said. “I am interested in how we all think about bodies and I want to challenge the notion that the naked body is intrinsically shameful or dirty.
“When artists exhibit their artwork they put a bit of themselves out in the world for people to respond to. For me, I put all of myself into the world. When I am performing, what you see is what it is – there is no pretending. It is very direct.”
Philippine artist Yason Banal is also intrigued by the male body and the juxtaposition of perception and reality.
In Death but Disco he contrasted the dazzle of a disco ball with concepts of “Samurai porn, death metal disco, folk science and news-casting”, sitting as a high Priest and stencilling tattoos onto actors appearing as sculptures in a state of stupor.
In Untitled / Again (Marienbad) he creates a video and performance inspired by Last Year at Marienbad, Alain Robert-Grillet and Alain Resnais' dream-like 1961 film in which a potential couple play out plans for a future they may or may not have devised in a chance meeting a year previously.
Banal will transport the surreal narrative to different cities, using Courtauld Institute students as a tableau vivant – silently poised in the background – in an amalgamation of acting and painting or photography.
Runs 10am - 5pm Saturday, 12pm - 4pm Sunday. Admission free, call 020 7872 0220. East Wing Collection, The Courtauld Institute of Art (opposite The Courtauld Gallery), Somerset House, London.
