Tim Lee

Each of Tim Lee's photographs documents the artist's attempt to lie perfectly still on his studio floor for the duration of an album by Public Enemy, from which they also take their titles. It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988) and Fear of a Black Planet (1990) are two of the most influential recordings across musical genres, and are highly charged statements about race and politics in the USA. Lee also mimics the bodily poses adopted by Bruce Nauman in his early endurance pieces, such as the series of Wall-Floor Positions (1968). Sampling from works of concept-based performance art and hip-hop music, Lee links the radicalism that lies at the heart of both practices.