“My paintings have a short life, but they have several of them.”
Henderson’s paintings oppose a one-directionality and challenge the vocabulary most frequently called upon to recognize subsurface meaning. Inasmuch as these works emphasize pentimenti, so too do they build upon its reverse; the palimpsest is achieved only in its opposite; sous rature is reversed. In these artworks, any continued additive act is in tandem with that which already existed previously: neither is privileged or permanent, no two things are clearly understood as one built upon another. The process is indistinguishable from the result, the picture and event are both fugitive.
The Tourist’s “rules of the game” are simple: individuals agree to participate and volunteer to share their gift of knowledge as they guide the artist on a certain day through the places, spaces, and experiences that define their city. The secrets that a city holds are revealed, not through neo-avant-garde articulations such as an unchartered surrealist flânerie of unearthly encounters, or even the Situationist International movement’s notion from mid-last century of dérive, or drifting through clandestine walks in urban spaces. Rather, this is more a guided mediation of the city by individuals who hold a deep and particular connection to place. Lee Mingwei explains that the tour guides are “the creators of the artwork with me, and they are truly the owners of the artwork.”
TALK BY LEE MINGWEI
TOKYO
MAY 16, 2019
CONCERT BY THOMAS ROUSSEL X PREQUELL, PEDRO WINTER, PHILIPPE ZDAR, AND SAMUEL BOUTRUCHE FOR ART BASEL PARTY
ELISABETHENKIRCHE, BASEL
JUNE 11, 2019
FRANCK MAUBERT SIGNING SESSION
PARIS
