In Residence: Okkyung Lee

After three days in the exhibition, the cellist, improviser, and composer Okkyung Lee presents a site-specific performance of her genre-blurring work as part of a series of residencies taking place in the gallery spaces.

Okkyung Lee, a New York-based artist and South Korea native, has created a body of work blurring genre boundaries through collaborations and compositions while testing the limit of contemporary cello performance techniques. Her music draws inspirations from noise and extended techniques, jazz, Western classical, and Korean traditional and popular music.

Since moving to New York in 2000, Okkyung’s unique approach to her instrument and improvisation led to collaborations with numerous artists such as Laurie Anderson, David Behrman, John Butcher, Chris Corsano, Mark Fell, Douglas Gordon, Vijay Iyer, Christian Marclay, Lasse Marhaug, Thurston Moore, Ikue Mori, Bill Orcutt, Marina Rosenfeld, Evan Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, Swans, Cecil Taylor and John Zorn to name just a few.

As a composer, her recent work include Cheol-Kkot-Sae (Steel Flower Bird) for two traditional Korean musicians and five improvisers, commissioned by SWR2 in Germany for Donaueschingen Music Festival in 2016, and still hoping for a miracle...? commissioned by Borealis Festival in Bergen, Norway in 2017.

Okkyung was recipient of Doris Duke Performing Artist Award in 2015 and Foundation For Contemporary Arts Grant in 2010.