JUDGEMENT 1994
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MSNBC
A detail from "Leopard King," from Daniel Lee's "Judgment" series, part of the "Gene(sis)" exhibition: The series calls on Chinese mythology to suggest the interplay of humans and animals at its most genetically outrageous extreme...
Art as bridge to science’s next big frontier
-- Genome studies inspire provocative exhibition set to tour nationally.
And Daniel Lee’s "Judgment" series calls on Chinese mythology to express a dramatic, and maybe disturbing, vision of genetic connection between humans and other species. Lee’s provocative photo-realistic approach is derived from the 108 creatures in the Chinese Circle of Reincarnation, each one to be judged in a subterranean court shortly after death. This philosophy of life, derived from Chinese tradition and Buddhism, informs this series of Photoshop-manipulated large-format photographs of people posing as the court’s "jurors" — humans with distinctly animal features.
The work wasn’t created with genomics in mind, but Lee said his images willfully expanded on the notion of genomic science as a way to suggest the interplay of humans and animals, and how that interplay might emerge in its most genetically outrageous form.
"Traditionally, Asian people believe there is a strong relationship between man and animal," Lee said. "But many people still don’t want to believe in the relationship between humans and animals. They don’t want to believe in the long history of evolution. We are really not too far from other animals."
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| "Juror no.1" (Pig King) |
"Juror no.3" (Dragon King) |
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| "Juror no.4" (Fox Spirit)*** |
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"Juror no.5" (Lord of Thunder) |
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| "Juror no.8" (Carp Spirit) |
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"Juror no.6" (Leopard Spirit)* |
"Juror no.7" (Lion King) |
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*Juror no 6 (Leopard Spirit)" has been collected by Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico and by Landes Museum, Linz, Austria
**"Judge of Dead and his Guards" has been collected by Kaushung Museum of Fine Art, Taiwan
*** "Juror no 4 (Fox Spirit)" has been collected by Landes Museum, Linz, Austria
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| "Juror no.9" (Snake Spirit) |
"Juror no.10" (Cat Spirit) |
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"Judge of Dead and his Guards" 3 sections of 35X53" inkjet print**
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©2005. Daniel Lee, represented by O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York. (212) 431 3600 • Nichido Contemporary Art, Tokyo. 3 5501-3203 • East Gallery, Taipei. (02) 2711 9502
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