Cox, Lei
Lei Cox works with video installation, video art, performance-to-camera and photography and has shown his work worldwide since 1985. His work has often been described a surreal, humorous and science fictional. Cox began working with black and white photography, this was essentially shot straight and with no special effects where finding the unusual in everyday landscapes and portraits was the dominant theme. These early photographs were made with full-frame purity, dramatic light with high contrast and tonal exaggeration.
The work changed direction after considering experimentation with sandwich negatives in the enlarger, studio lighting work, filmmaking and video art and the vast possibilities of moving images and early digital video effects. Together with parallel interests in sound and music, video art and video installation became his main form of expression. Later utilizing digital broadcast quality production and post production equipment he began questioning the need for extensive compositing, the reliance of the computer and the over complication of some works which took up to two years to construct.
Major solo exhibitions have been shown in the Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, Laing Gallery, Newcastle and Gallery Rene Coelho, Amsterdam. Cox has also been exhibited in shows including Tel Aviv Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tate Gallery Liverpool, Osnabruck European Media Art Festival, His Single screen work has been shown in over 70 international festivals and he has recently completed an interactive camera obscura public artwork, The Dark Room: Mountain to Sea – Beyond Site which is situated on Cairngorm Mountain in Scotland.
updated April 2022
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Interview of Lei Cox
View the interview transcript here
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Exhibitions:
Catching Sight of SputnikBeing There Retrospective of Lei Cox, Video Pool Media Arts Centre & Gurevich Fine Art, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, May 04 -June 02, 2012
Follow Lei Cox on a journey to fiction and back again in Being There. Video Pool Media Arts Centre in collaboration with Gurevich Fine Art are pleased to present a retrospective of Lei Cox`s work from 1986 to 2011. Current work includes: Being There: a triptych video performance inspired by a life long obsession with flight, space travel and human desire to push the envelope. Catching Sight of Sputnik 2009/11, Race 2010/11, and Auto Draw 2010 will be exhibited together displaying a range of work that begins a 26-year quest to find a surrealistic fiction, or the unusual, in everyday life through the medium of photography and video. -
Videography:
Videotapes by Lei Cox
1987
Lighthead1987-88
The Size of Things (4 screen)1988
The Parallel
The Torso
The Untitled the Observed (3 screen)1989
Fusion and The Electrical Prowess (7 screen)1990
Giant (stage set video installation)1992
Magnification Maximus (4 to 16 screen)1993
The Sufferance (7 screen video)1995
Flower Field1996
In the Freezer Exquisite Corps 001 (3 screen)
The Reincarnation
The Eating Man1997
Storm Matrix1998
Skies over Flowerfield (3 screen)1999
Moon Flowers2000
The Conductor
Tic – Toc
Counting Down to the End of Time2001
Wave (4 screen)2009
Catching Sight of Sputnik 2009/112010
Auto Draw 2010
Race 2010/11,2012
Being There: a triptych video performance inspired by a life long obsession with flight, space travel and human desire to push the envelope. -
External Links:
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Artist works:
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Artist assets:
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Quotes:
Lei Cox works with video installation, video art, performance-to-camera and photography and has shown his work worldwide since 1985. His work has often been described a surreal, humorous and science fictional. Cox began working with black and white photography, this was essentially shot straight and with no special effects where finding the unusual in everyday landscapes and portraits was the dominant theme. These early photographs were made with full-frame purity, dramatic light with high contrast and tonal exaggeration. The work changed direction after considering experimentation with sandwich negatives in the enlarger, studio lighting work, filmmaking and video art and the vast possibilities of moving images and early digital video effects. Together with parallel interests in sound and music, video art and video installation became his main form of expression. Later utilizing digital broadcast quality production and post production equipment he began questioning the need for extensive compositing, the reliance of the computer and the over complication of some works which took up to two years to construct. Major solo exhibitions have been shown in the Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, Laing Gallery, Newcastle and Gallery Rene Coelho, Amsterdam. Cox has also been exhibited in shows including Tel Aviv Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tate Gallery Liverpool, Osnabruck European Media Art Festival, His Single screen work has been shown in over 70 international festivals and he has recently completed an interactive camera obscura public artwork, The Dark Room: Mountain to Sea – Beyond Site which is situated on Cairngorm Mountain in Scotland. - Video Pool Media Arts Centre & Marshall McLuhan & Vilém Flusser Communication & Aesthetics Theories Revisited Conference
