Lot 37
Ken Lum (b. 1956)
Lot 37 Details
Ken Lum (b. 1956), Canadian
I DON’T KNOW WHETHER TO LAUGH OR CRY, 2003 (FROM THE CONTACT PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION)
giclee print on Arches paper
signed and numbered 58/75 to margin
image 20 x 7.75 in — 50.8 x 19.7 cm
Estimate $1,000-$2,000
Additional Images
Provenance:
CONTACT Photography Festival, Toronto, ON
Note:
Since the creation of the CONTACT Photography Festival in 1997, this community-based event helps to support and unite artists from Canada and around the world. The proceeds from the sale of the works consigned to Waddington’s by the CONTACT Photography Festival help to expand viewership for the best examples of photography on the market today, and further the creative possibilities of the medium in the past, present, and future.
Ken Lum won last year’s Scotiabank Photography Award with his now-iconic “I Don’t Know Whether to Laugh or Cry,” 2003. The artist is associated with Vancouver’s photo conceptualist movement, and borrows his aesthetic from advertisements. Lum plays with stereotypes, and often juxtaposes images with text, leveraging the dichotomy between the two to ask the viewer to consider what it is that they really see.