Daniel Lee, featured artist, Animal Instinct exhibit, San Antonio Museum Of Art.

A philosopher and humanist at heart, Daniel Lee has held a longtime fascination with human behavior. In his photographs produced since 1993, Lee has been conducting an ongoing inquiry into questions about what makes us human. Specifically, he is a keen observer of the many parallels that can be found between us homo sapiens and other species. Using computer technology and a vivid imagination, he has produced several photographic series that reveal many of the attributes that we share with our animal compatriots.

Born in 1945 as Lee Xiaojing in Chunking, China, Lee was raised in Taiwan and moved to United States after receiving his BFA in painting in 1968 from the Chinese Culture University, Taipei. In 1972 he earned an MA in Photography and Film from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia and, in 1973, he moved to New York City to work as a commercial art director. By the end of the 1970s, Lee had decided to devote his time to being a fulltime artist. Since 1993, he has used computer technology to combine his photographic and fine art skills in a single medium.

Animal Instinct is a survey exhibition of Daniel Lee’s photography from 1993-2010. The exhibition begins with examples from the series Manimals (1993), which is based on the ancient Chinese zodiac cycle of twelve animal signs associated with birth years. Using digital technology, Lee creates hybrids of human beings and animals, portraying the idea that a person is believed to exhibit behavioral and personality traits, sometimes even physical characteristics, relative to the animal year during which he or she was born. Also included in the exhibition are several photographic murals. 108 Windows (1996-2003) is related to a Buddhist tradition of ringing 108 bells on special occasions. In Nightlife (2001), Lee’s characteristic hybrid figures are transformed into punk night clubbers. Celebration (2004), from the series Harvest, is an imaginative vision of a future world populated with a breed of livestock that supplies human eyes, hearts, livers and other harvested organs as a means of furthering the human race. Lee’s latest mural, Circus (2010), reveals the symbiotic relationship between humans and animals at its most extreme: animals perform like people, people perform like animals, and audiences retreat into children. The exhibition also includes a print from the series Dreams (2008), which was inspired by a book of short stories, and Origin (1999-2003), a digital animation based on Darwin’s theory of evolution. In keeping with of the tradition of calligraphically inscribing a work’s title and artist’s signature in the lower corner of a Chinese scroll painting, Lee has presented this information digitally on his prints.

David Rubin, The Brown Foundation Curator of Contemporary Art, Animal Instinct exhibit curator.

Animal Instinct by Daniel Lee at the San Antonio Museum Of Art.

Animal Instinct by Daniel Lee at the San Antonio Museum Of Art.

Animal Instinct by Daniel Lee at the San Antonio Museum Of Art.

Animal Instinct by Daniel Lee at the San Antonio Museum Of Art.

Animal Instinct by Daniel Lee at the San Antonio Museum Of Art.

Three Yellow Dogs, by Daniel Lee.

Origin, video sequence by Daniel Lee.

Manimals, by Daniel Lee.

Daniel and Margaret Tengyin Lee.

SAMA docent explaining 108 Windows by Daniel Lee.

Opening reception for the Animal Instinct exhibit at SAMA.

Elise Boularan, Isa Ho, Margaret Tengyin Lee, Dita Kubin, Daniel Lee, Cheng-chang Wu, Malin Vulcano, and Jennifer Shaw.

Jeffrey Dyer and Jerry Craft, friends of Fotoseptiembre and fans of Daniel Lee’s work.

Opening remarks at the reception for the Animal Instinct exhibit by Daniel Lee at the San Antonio Museum Of Art.

A few days later, A Conversation With Daniel Lee, conducted by exhibit curator David Rubin.

A Conversation With Daniel Lee, conducted by exhibit curator David Rubin.

A Conversation With Daniel Lee, conducted by exhibit curator David Rubin.

Taking questions from the public.

Circus, by Daniel Lee, Animal Instinct exhibit, San Antonio Museum Of Art.