Up and coming contemporary artists - chosen by experts

Dan Rees

Practice: conceptual / multidisciplinary

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Much of Dan Rees' work assimilates the actions of other modern and contemporary artists in a humorous embrace of creative precedent and frank recognition of historical authority.

Rees's slide projection entitled '80 Girlfriends in 2007' (2007), for example, riffs directly on Ed Ruscha's 'Five 1955 Girlfriends' (1969), while 'A Cup of Tea with Gavin Turk' (2007) sees Rees adding his own spillage to a limited edition by Turk consisting of a circular tea stain.

The resulting conceptual dialogue is paralleled and parodied by the visual suggestion of a cosy tête à tête between the two artists.

A further, increasingly dominant, theme in Dan Rees' practice investigates agency besides the artist's own, particularly the ability of an artwork to suggest or create haptic connections.

In a nod to British conceptual artist Jonathan Monk's various postcard works, 'The Postman's Decision is Final' (2008), consists of two cards glued back to back, each bearing the address of an exhibition space and another, unrelated, destination. Those postcards that make it to the show are duly exhibited.