Bruce Lee (Nieves)
2010
One of my problems with the term “zine” is that it is tied explicity to punk ideology. I have no real interest in punk, so, even the most I define any book I make – no matter how simply it is produced – as a “book” and nothing else. I made an exception for Benjamin Sommerhalder’s Nieves imprint and its zine series. It takes its title from one of my earliest memories of really being struck by an image: a poster of Bruce Lee from "Enter The Dragon" in my friend Daniel's room. The back cover is a painting of a press shot Juergen Teller took of the band Elastica. They best illustrate my long held perception of punk: materially and educationally privileged Westerners slipping on the costumes of societal persecution and political upheaval. Jinjoo Hwang kindly helped me draw and paint the images.
Bruce Lee is made up of eight paintings whose sources are drawn from a scrapbook comprised of more than 20,000 images.
Text by Diana Kim: Harsh Patel's (1981, Nairobi) projects include Sister and Zulu, which are difficult to pin down but involve mail, publishing, multiples, relationships, and conceptual intimacy. Mr. Patel's evolving practice is invested in the notion of impermanent iconographies, but the resultant materials – tapes, books, objects, interventions, etc. – only begin to coalesce when the viewer agrees to a tacit engagement in someone's version of a personal history. That much we know.
