Goldsmiths - University of London

Phillip Lai

My practice as an artist often works through themes of containment and dispersal implying both philosophical and socio-political interests. In relation to these I am interested in the current indeterminacies of collective space. I have been looking at how we have proposed, been directed and found ourselves relating to objects, spaces and images; the form of subjectivity and our complicity and displacement in the exercise of power and influence; and the continuing notion of the liberal in western culture. I have aimed to reprocess and reconfigure these relationships, sometimes contrasting the haunting from these ideas and that of the narrative speculation of our lives, with a simple material consciousness that is about how things are tangible or how they can be known. Recent work has responded to an increasing sense of spaces of both deferral and detainment and their correlation to drives for self-containment and social communion.

Academic qualifications

1993-94 MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art & Design
1990-93 BA Fine Art (sculpture), Chelsea College of Art & Design

Teaching

Feb 2007 Visiting Tutor, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (BA Fine Art - sculpture)
2006-current Lecturer, BA Fine Art Goldsmiths College, University of London
2001-2005 Visiting Tutor, BA Fine Art Goldsmiths College, University of London
2002-current Associate Lecturer, MA Fine Art
Chelsea College of Art & Design, University of the Arts London
Feb-May 2006 Visiting Lecturer, BA Fine Art and Visual Culture Bristol School of Art, Media & Design, University of West England
Nov-Dec 2005 Course Lecturer - Art in Context Richmond The American International University in London
Nov 2002 Visiting Tutor, Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford University
(BA Fine Art)
Oct 1996 Visiting Tutor, Brighton University (BA Fine Art - sculpture)
Apr 1996 Visiting Tutor, University of Humberside (BA Fine Art)
Mar 1995 Visiting Tutor, Middlesex University (BA Fine Art)
Mar 1995 Visiting Tutor, Brighton University (BA Fine Art - sculpture)
Dec 1994 Visiting Tutor, Brighton University (BA Fine Art - sculpture)

Presentations and exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

2007 Free To Meet For Coffee Sometime Soon, Modern Art, London
2000 His Divine Grace, Modern Art, London
1997 Phillip Lai, The Showroom, London commissioned by The Showroom in collaboration with inIVA

Group exhibitions

2006 In The Poem About Love You Don't Write The Word Love, Artists Space and Anthology Film Archives, New York
John Frumism, Hotel, London If it didn't exist you'd have to invent it : a partial Showroom history, The Showroom, London
2005 In The Poem About Love You Don't Write The Word Love, CCA, Glasgow
Drawing 200, The Drawing Room, London
Tannery Arts Exhibition, Artists Studios Open Weekend, Tannery Arts, London
2004 Uscita Pistoia, SpazioA, Pistoia, Italy
Strange Weather, Modern Art, London
Tag Team Experiment, two-person relay exhibition, alternative space, Edinburgh
2003 Drawing 100, The Drawing Room, London
2002 We Want Out, CityLights Project, Melbourne
2000-1 Senselessness-lessness, Tramway, Glasgow
Death Race 2000, Threadwaxing Space, New York *
Drawing Exhibition, Herefordshire College of Art & Design
1999 Cities on the Move, Hayward Gallery, London
(included as part of Nasubi Gallery project) *
Black Box,(continued screenings) venues: Angel Row/Nottingham, Artezium/Luton
New Video from Great Britain, (British Council tour to South America) venues included: Sala Mendoza, Caracas, Museo Carillo Gil, Mexico City
1998 Black Box, (commissioned by Film & Video Umbrella) venues: Open Eye , Liverpool (ISEA), Lift (Pandæmonium festival), London, Aspex, Portsmouth, ARC, Stockton-on-Tees *
New Video from Great Britain, MOMA, New York
Bed and Workshop, alternative space, Rennes, France
Grey Area, Bonnington Gallery, Nottingham
1996 Deep Signal, Gasworks, London
Deep Signal, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh
Off Camp/On Base (Pimple Life), Tokyo Big Sight Exhibition Centre, Japan
I beg to differ, Milch, London
Update 96, The Old Turbine Hall, Copenhagen
1995 Institute of Cultural Anxiety, ICA, London *
Fresh, (continued screenings) venues: Video Positive 95, Liverpool, Tate, London
1994 Weirdos, SAGA Basement, Copenhagen
Fresh, (Film & Video Umbrella touring programme) venues included: ICA, London, CCA, Glasgow, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham *
Miniatures, The Agency, London
No Vacancies, alternative space, Frankfurt

* denotes exhibition publication (pamphlet, catalogue or video-catalogue)

Awards, nominations & residencies

2006 Research and Development visit to Armenia (by invitation of the British Council)
1999 Award to Individual Artists - London Arts (formerly London Arts Board)
1996 One-month residency toward "Off Camp/On Base" exhibition, Tokyo / Japan

Collections

Saatchi Collection,
London Arts Council of England

Selected publications

Publications & other professional activities

2006 Public lecture - Artists Lecture Series, Arnolfini / Bristol
2001 Guest speaker at Li Yuan Chia exhibition talk, Camden Arts Centre / London
1999 Contribution to Bent Aura (STOPSTOP Vol.2) (ISBN 1-902052-01-3)
1998 Guest advisor to London Arts (formerly London Arts Board)
1997 Phillip Lai, The Showroom - exhibition catalogue (ISBN 1-899846-12-3) essay by Francis McKee, interview by Karina Daskalov

Selected bibliography

2006 Martin Coomer, 'John Frumism', Time Out July 12-19
Sherman Sam, 'John Frumism', The Brooklyn Rail (http://brooklynrail.org) July/Aug
'Artists Lecture Series' Arnolfini programme pamphlet
2004 Martin Coomer, 'Strange Weather', Time Out August 4-11
2000 Mark Currah, 'His Divine Grace', Time Out March
1998 'Grey Area', Contemporary Visual Arts issue 17