Scotiabank Photography Award: Ken Lum

May 15–August 3, 2024
Main Gallery
Curator: Gaëlle Morel

This exhibition, comprising signature series along with new works, celebrates the career of Canadian artist Ken Lum, winner of the 2023 Scotiabank Photography Award. Lum is internationally known for his conceptualist and often humorous approach, which draws on methods from cultural and social studies, semiology, psychoanalysis, and political philosophy. The artist’s impactful practice utilizes photography to investigate the relationship between language and representation in the public space. By doing so, Lum critically challenges the social hierarchies and dominant narratives related to identity, class, and gender that are always at play in capitalist and postcolonial societies.

Public Programs

Special Exhibition Tour | Scotiabank Photography Award: Ken Lum
Gaëlle Morel and Dan Adler (York University)
Wednesday, June 19, 2024 | 6 pm

All events take place at The Image Centre (33 Gould St., Toronto) unless otherwise noted.

Fig. 1

Ken Lum, Lau Hoi Ting Recalls a Poem of Her Youth, from the series Image/Repeated Text, 1994/2023, powder coated aluminum with vinyl. Courtesy of Magenta Plains Gallery, New York/Royale Projects, Los Angeles, Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin/Cologne/Munich.

Fig. 2

Ken Lum, I'm not stupid. You're the one who's stupid, from the series Image/Repeated Text, 1994/2023, powder coated aluminum with vinyl. Courtesy of the artist, Magenta Plains, New York and Royale Projects, Los Angeles, Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin/Cologne/Munich.

Fig. 3

Ken Lum, Thanh Thuy Vu, Jänner, Gabi Petrikovic, Februar, Hamila De Souza, März, Manfred Klumpp, April, from the series Schnitzel Company, 2004–2023, inkjet prints. Courtesy of Magenta Plains Gallery, New York/Royale Projects, Los Angeles, Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin/Cologne/Munich.

Artist Biography

Ken Lum (Canada/USA, b. 1956) works in various media, including painting, sculpture, installation, photography, and public art. He is currently Chair of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design, Philadelphia. Lum’s art has been included in major exhibitions such as Documenta 11 (Germany), the Venice Biennale (Italy), the São Paulo Biennial (Brazil), and the Whitney Biennial (USA). He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship (1999), the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award (2007), the Gershon Iskowitz Prize (2019), and the Governor-General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2020). He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2017. Lum is represented by Magenta Plains, New York, Royale Projects, Los Angeles, and Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin/Cologne/Munich.

Exhibition Catalogue

Fig.
Cover of Scotiabank Photography Award: Ken Lum

This book presents over four decades of Ken Lum’s multidisciplinary practice, which spans conceptual art to installation and delves into universal themes of identity and urban life. Lum’s influential work, with its focus on cross-cultural dialogue and the complexities of the modern world, resonates globally—be it painting, sculpture, photography, or public art projects that engage with individual and collective identity in the context of historical trauma and the complications of memory. Shaped by a keen sense of humanity and a wide knowledge of history and literature, Lum is a visionary who has consistently challenged societal norms, the ruling classes, religious suppression and racism, among other horrors which we continue to inflict upon each other. This publication presents a sweep of Lum’s photographic series, at once descriptive and disruptive, personal and political, including “Portrait/Logos” (1984–86), “Portrait/Repeated Text Works” (1993 to present) and “Image Mirrors” (2021); as well as his work with Monument Lab, a public art project he co-founded with urban geographer Paul Farber which fosters critical conversation around the past, present and future of monuments.

Installation Shots