Note:

Printed in 1999

Distinguished Vancouver-based conceptual artist Ken Lum works in painting, photography, sculpture, installation, and large-scale public commissions, addressing issues of personal and cultural identity with an edge of social critique. Particularly attuned to the individual's rights in our age of globalization and migrations, Lum's work over 40 years was the subject of a large-scale 2011 survey at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Among the exhibited works were his recent Rorschach Shopkeeper Signs. Photo-text works such as these, along with his mock low-rent strip mall signs and his staged portraits, are among Lum's signature pieces. He represented Canada at Documenta XI (2002), the Istabul Biennial (2007) and the Gwangju Biennial in South Korea (2008), the Moscow Biennale (2011) and is increasingly visible in the burgeoning Chinese art scene. His 2000 public installation near the Kunsthalle in Vienna, there is no place like home, controversially points to the rise of the right in Europe and sets the tone for other public works that identify social imbalances or speak for the silenced. A prolific and celebrated creator, critic, writer, and teacher, Lum was appointed a Guggenheim Fellow in 1999 and a Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award in 2007.