If you haven’t yet been to the Ken Lum exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery, you should GO RIGHT NOW! Sign out of facebook, put down that bowl of Mini-Wheats and get yee to public transit. Admission is $13 for students or by donation on Tuesday nights.
This exhibition could help you to push the limits of your ideas and what can be considered ‘art’, not to mention that much of Ken Lum’s work fits perfectly with this season’s theme. The artist draws context from his personal experience as a resident of a culturally diverse place, and often combines image and object in interesting ways! Let’s take a look!
Ken Lum, Amir, 2000
Amir looks like a typical small business sign, but its placement inside an Art Gallery sets it apart from everyday life. Here’s another example of how artists toy with the idea of Portrait (People Take Pictures of Each Other) and Still Life (Foreign Object). This sign is functioning as a portrait in the way that it makes us imagine the business owner. We consider what culture this person is from (‘Eritrea’ is a pretty good clue!), and wonder why the owner is moving.
