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Sitting Slip

17 April 2009

Live performance with clay, wooden chair, suit, shirt & tie
Installation included the remnants of the performance: clay-marked suit, shirt, & tie, wooden chair and clay foot prints. Video monitor and DVD player
DVD video documentation - c. 55 mins, looped

Performance - 17 April 2009
At the opening of At Play 1
Exhibition - 17 to 21 April 2009
Bracknell Gallery
South Hill Park
Ringmead
Bracknell, Berkshire UK

During the opening reception ofAt Play 1Philip Lee performedSitting Slip I. Before the show opened Lee covered his head, hands and feet in white clay slip. He was also wearing a dark suit, shirt and tie. From 6 to 7.30 pm he sat in a hunched position on a small wooden children's chair; his demeanour was that of someone sulking - knitted brow and lower lip pushed out. At the end of the performance, by which time much of the clay on his head had dried and cracked, Lee left the gallery leaving a series of footprints from the performance space. There were no such footprints leading to the space.

The leaflet accompanying the exhibition says -
"Making a mess in a controlled, possibly obsessive way, Lee performs an extreme form of child's play inSitting Slip I, 2009. There is a pleasure in doing something that an adult is not supposed to do. With head, hands and feet covered in clay, Lee sulks while sitting on a small chair.

Philip Lee'sprima materiais his own body. Lee sees the body as a link between our internal and external worlds, and hopes the live performance engages people and moves them to think about their own corporeal existence. Using earth materials in transformations that may be durational or theatrical and usually involve endurance, Lee's performances and installations integrate live body mark-making and sculptural display. Ritualistic actions are used to convey ideas about masculinity, loss and the body's deterioration. Installations reflect the performances, showing traces of the live event, with video projections or photographs documenting the actions.

At Playin the Bracknell Gallery and Tall Hall explores ideas about play: making magic and being transformed, passing the time, messing about and making a mess, being yourself and pretending to be someone else, having secrets, making dens, belonging to gangs, creating rules and rituals, taking dares and chances, making and exploring small worlds. The exhibition re-creates in both adults and children a sense of what it is like to be a child at play. It encourages the viewer to gaze, to remember, to touch, to explore, to trust, to think, to laugh, to peer, to concentrate, to join in, to bend down, to take a chance… and to play. At Play 1 features work by Marco Cali, Marcin Gajewski, Rosie Gibson, Judy Goldhill & Sophie Loss, Susan Eyre, Cathy Hart & Esther Jervis, Aaron Head, Pernille Holm-Mercer, Ingrid Jensen, Philip Lee, Siobhan McAuley, Samantha Mogelonsky, Fedor Pavlov-Andreevich, Kay Sentance, Liz Whiteman Smith, John Tenniel and Cally Trench. At Play 2 returns on 17 April - 20 June 2010 for a mansion-wide exhibition.At Play1 and 2 are co-curated by Cally Trench and Outi Remes."

The following review can be found on the a-n website here: www.a-n.co.uk/interface...537517

'The concept of isolation is continued in the work of Philip Lee.Sitting Slipwas a piece performed at the private view, but the plaster (sic) stained clothes and marks on the floor are left as a reminder of what happened. The small children's chair sits on it's own in the gallery with Lee's clothes draped over it. The film playing in the gallery shows Lee sitting on the chair, 'Lee performs an extreme form of child's play…there is a pleasure in doing something that an adult is not supposed to do.'

Another a-n review is here:
www.a-n.co.uk/interface...537944

Details can be found on Facebook here:
www.facebook.com/photo...329861

Performance assisted in development and at the event by Cally Trench

Also assisted at South Hill Park by Areej Abdi and Arnaud Moinet

Exhibition curated by Cally Trench and Outi Remes

Photography by Arnaud Moinet, Areej Abdi and Cally Trench
Video Filming by Arnaud Moinet
Video editing by Aaron Kay with Philip Lee

Reviews of the show and performance can be seen on the following a-n website pages:
http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/537517
http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/537944

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