Lee Adams is a London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 based performance art

Performance art

In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...

ist, curator

Curator

A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...

 and experimental film maker

Experimental film

Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...

. Much of his work has been influenced by the ideas of French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 dissident surrealist and philosopher Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille was a French writer. His multifaceted work is linked to the domains of literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art...

.

Life and work

Adams studied Fine Art

Fine art

Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....

 at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art

The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art

The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, known as The Ruskin, is an art school and research institute at the University of Oxford.Working collaboratively across two sites, the school provides undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications in the study and production of visual art...

, University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 (1989–1992) under Professor Brian Catling.
He has performed and exhibited extensively in London and internationally in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, Belfast

Belfast

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

, Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

, Lausanne

Lausanne

Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...

, Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Tallinn

Tallinn

Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...

, Vilnius

Vilnius

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

, Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

, Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Houston, New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, San Francisco, Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 and Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

.

In 2003 he performed The Language of Flowers for Visions of Excess, an eighteen-hour event inspired by Georges Bataille’s book of collected early essays (1927–1939), featuring Udo Kier

Udo Kier

Udo Kier is a German actor, known primarily for his work in horror and exploitation movies.-Early life:...

, Bruce LaBruce

Bruce LaBruce

Bruce LaBruce is a Canadian writer, filmmaker, photographer and underground gay porn director based in Toronto, Ontario.-Biography:...

, Slava Mogutin

Slava Mogutin

Slava Mogutin is a New York-based Russian artist and author, who works across different media, including photography, video, text, installation, sculpture and painting.-Life and work:...

 and Kembra Pfahler

Kembra Pfahler

Kembra Pfahler is an American performance artist, rock musician and actress. As a performance artist she has been recognized on every "Top 10 List" published during the past quarter century. Her graphic depictions of the horror, repetition, degradation, and have been recognized as insightfully...

, curated by Ron Athey

Ron Athey

Ron Athey is an American performance artist associated with body art and with extreme performance art. He has performed in the U.S. and internationally . Athey's work explores challenging subjects like the relationships between desire, sexuality, and traumatic experience...

 & Vaginal Davis

Vaginal Davis

Vaginal Davis is an American genderqueer performing artist, painter, independent curator, composer, and writer. Davis's name is a homage to activist Angela Davis.-Life and career:Davis is often associated with the formation of the Queer-Core Zine Movement...

 for Fierce! Festival. He performed with Guillermo Gomez-Pena at Tate Modern

Tate Modern

Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...

.

In 2006 he collaborated with Athey to curate The Monster in the Night of the Labyrinth, commissioned by The Hayward Gallery, London as part of the exhibition Undercover Surrealism, Georges Bataille & Documents.

This was followed by a series of collaborative events with Athey including Re-Visions of Excess for the finale of the 10th anniversary of Fierce! Festival in 2007, Visions of Excess at SHUNT Vaults, London, commissioned by the SPILL Festival of Performance in 2009 and A History of Ecstasy (2009) alongside Othon Mataragas

Othon Mataragas

OTHON, a.k.a. Othon Mataragas , is a Greek composer, songwriter and pianist.-Early life:Othon Mataragas started to play the piano at the age of four and the following year he gave his first recital...

, Ernesto Tomasini

Ernesto Tomasini

Ernesto Tomasini is an Italian actor/singer/writer living in Britain. Best known for his more recent forays into contemporary music, he has behind himself a 20 year career on the stage.-Early performances:...

, Vaginal Davis

Vaginal Davis

Vaginal Davis is an American genderqueer performing artist, painter, independent curator, composer, and writer. Davis's name is a homage to activist Angela Davis.-Life and career:Davis is often associated with the formation of the Queer-Core Zine Movement...

, Julie Tolentino, Mouse and Pigpen at the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Donna Regina (MADRE) Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, as part of the Napoli Teatro Festival Italia

Napoli Teatro Festival Italia

The Napoli Teatro Festival Italia is an international festival which takes place every year during the month of June in Naples, Italy. The Festival’s organization selects, produces and commissions plays, exhibitions and artistic performances, involving artists from all over the world for the...

.

He later performed in London for Panic, curated by Guerrilla Zoo at the Old Abattoir, alongside works by the founders of Mouvement Panique

Panic Movement

Panic Movement was a collective formed by Fernando Arrabal, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Roland Topor in Paris, France in 1962...

 - Alejandro Jodorowsky

Alejandro Jodorowsky

Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky, known as Alejandro Jodorowsky, is a Chilean filmmaker, playwright, actor, author, comic book writer and spiritual guru...

 and Roland Topor

Roland Topor

Roland Topor , was a French illustrator, painter, writer and filmmaker, known for the surreal nature of his work...

 and in Copenhagen for Visions of Excess at the International Festival of Performance Art alongside Kira O'Reilly

Kira O'Reilly

Kira O'Reilly is a performance artist based in the UK. She graduated from Cardiff School of Art in 1998, and has participated in a number of performance art festivals throughout the UK and Europe, including at the Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University 1998, the National Review of Live Art,...

, Dominic Johnson, Lazlo Pearlman and Mouse at Warehouse 9.

He presented Through A Glass Darkly, a retrospective lecture covering his early experimental films and more recent documented performance at the London Underground Film Festival, hosted by the Horse Hospital London in December 2010.

External links

• http://www.leeadams.net/LeeAdams/welcome.html