Speak to us: An exhibition of work by Kim Lehman

Speak to us is an exhibition of work by Launceston based artist KimLehman. Strongly conceptual in nature Kim's work in Speak to usinvestigates the interactions between, and viewer responses to, the physicalgallery space, the art making process, and the nature of art itself. There isalso a clear concern with the artist's omniscient presence in the work anumber of the pieces involve some form of self-representation. For example,the work Self portrait, Turbine Hall has the artist in the Tate Modern'sTurbine Hall, the site of many large scale and imposing works, and which,only a few weeks after the image was taken housed Ai Wei Wei's Sunflowerseeds. Similarly, the title piece, Speak to us, 'o wise one! lists the locationsat which the artist has given a presentation from 2005 to 2010. Thephotomedia series People I don't know in Paris art galleries and theperformance work 3 models at an art exhibition opening more obviouslyquestion the role of the artist as the maker of special kinds of materialobjects. Over a number of years, and in various disciplines, there are twopreoccupations apparent in Kim Lehman's creative practice. The first isportraying the idea of being out of context, of people or things seeminglybeing in the wrong time or place. The result for the viewer can be a'disturbance' in their reality, which creates the opportunity to makecomment on social phenomena, his second preoccupation. Kim is notnecessarily interested in making evangelical statements, but is interested incausing the viewer to think more deeply on the issues that concern him. Theworks in Speak to us all evidence these preoccupations.