Kang Seung Lee

Untitled (la revolución es la solución!), 2017
Neon, acrylic, take-away posters (offset print)
Neon 22 x 66 inches; Posters 24 x 36 inches

Artist Statement
I am exhibiting two works (a neon work and take-away posters) from the project Untitled (la revolución es la solución!) (2017). Untitled (la revolución es la solución!) co-opt the work of photojournalists taken during the LA uprising in 1992 whose images continue to implicate the subjectivities of human bodies through graphic depictions of violence, perpetuating the stereotypes of racialized figures. Commonly understood as a white-black conflict, the uprising was also a boiling point for tensions in the Latino and Asian communities. As the first multi-ethnic race conflict in the United States marked by a cataclysm of growing discontent between the residents of disadvantaged, working class neighborhoods and the immigrant, merchant class, Koreatown was particularly volatile as business owners self-organized into a militia in response to police apathy. My removal of the bodies in the posters is aimed to challenge the popular representation and invite a movement towards the radical emancipation of otherness. The neon was traced from graffiti made during the uprising. 

The project was originally commissioned by Artpace San Antonio in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the uprising. 

Kang Seung Lee
Untitled (la revolución es la solución!), 2017
Neon, acrylic, take-away posters (offset print)
Neon 22 x 66 inches

Kang Seung Lee
Untitled (la revolución es la solución!), 2017
Neon, acrylic, take-away posters (offset print)
Posters 24 x 36 inches

Biography
Kang Seung Lee is a multidisciplinary artist who was born in South Korea and now lives and works in Los Angeles. Lee is the recipient of the CCF Fellowship for Visual Artists (2019), the Rema Hort Mann Foundation grant (2018), and Artpace San Antonio International Artist-in-Residence program (2017). In 2020 Lee’s new projects will be exhibited at MMCA Seoul, Daelim Museum, Leslie-Lohman Museum, 18th Street Art Center and the 13th Gwangju Biennale. He received an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts.