Ken Lum

Vancouver artist Ken Lum will be featured in one of the two opening exhibitions at the new Contemporary Art Gallery. Lum is one of Canada's most celebrated and internationally exhibited artists. His work has been presented in Canada, across Europe and the USA, as well as Australia, Brazil, South Africa, China, and Japan. He was recently included in the 2000 Shanghai Biennial, and in 2002 he will have a survey of his photo-based work at the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography. Lum is well known for appropriating the symbols of popular culture and using text in relationship to visual components.

His exhibition for CAG's new B.C. Binning Gallery will consist of large wall works that simulate business signs for small enterprises such as restaurants, hair salons or travel agencies. They mimic a popular genre of signage that provides a section where words can be changed for slogans and sales announcements, much like movie marquees. Lum has animated these signs with texts that make statements that both relate to, and are in contradistinction to, the nature of the business and the types of messages they usually commu­nicate. These signs provide a more direct and challenging "voice" for their unseen proprietors. 


Essay: “UNTITLED (KEN),” Michael Turner

Ken Lum’s works are mounted on the gallery walls. They are text based two dimensional works with colourful advertisement posters. Their sizes vary, but many of them are larger than human scale.

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Ken Lum’s works are mounted on the gallery walls. They are text based two dimensional works with advertisement posters, such as an anti-racist text accompanying the ad for a sexual service. 

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Exhibitions exploring the City of Vancouver Art Collection, managed by the Contemporary Art Gallery since 1971, have been the feature of our summer program during the past two years. This year the Gallery is taking a different approach to the idea of art collecting by focusing on art that has been collected by artists. Artists often acquire work through a variety of means such as trades, purchases from colleagues and through supporting the art auctions that are an essential means of raising funds for many non-profit galleries. The artists invited to share their collections in *Private Eyes* represent a diversity of sensibilities in their own work and in what they have collected. Selected works from five Vancouver artists' collections will be featured: Christos/ Sophie Dikeakos, Gisele Amantea/Peter White, Ken Lum/Denise Oleksijczuk, Hank Bull/Kate Craig, and Renee Van Halm.

In this exhibition the artists will also be assuming the role of curator. Each artist has been asked to select works from their own collection and to determine how they will be installed within their allotted space in the Gallery. Each collection will be arranged as a personalized grouping rather than the usual presentation of individual works standing on their own. Artists as collectors are often overlooked in considering how art collections are traditionally developed; *Private Eyes* brings a new perspective to this important aspect of the art-world.

Eleven artworks mounted on a white wall. The works include a small all-red painting, a double exposure photo portrait, and a text work that reads "au secouirs!". Some works are framed, some are not.

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Eight framed art works on a white wall. The works vary in size and are photographs, illustrations, or mixed media. The frames of the works are black, white or plain wood. 

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A corner of a gallery space with several artworks mounted across both walls. The works vary in size, framed and unframed. On the right, there is a large photo of a tree with a blue sky, upside down.

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31 landscape paintings of many sizes in various frames mounted on a white wall in a gallery space. Below, in front of the wall, there is a faded red velvet couch with a feather-shaped paisley pattern.

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Two walls and a darkened hallway in a gallery space. The walls contain several artworks of different sizes. Two works of different sizes are upside-down photos of trees in front of blue skies. 

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14 artworks on a gallery wall. The bottom edges of the works are mounted at the same level , but their height and width varies. The largest work, on the right, is a Salish landscape illustration.

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Three white walls and a shadowy hallway in a gallery. Dozens of artworks are mounted on the walls. The works on the back wall are landscapes, with a faded red velvet couch in front of them.

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11 works mounted on a white wall. The works are placed asymmetrically, many of them in wood frames. One work reads "Big Tree." Beside it, there is a large photo of an upside-down tree and a blue sky.

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13  artworks are mounted on a white wall in a gallery, all but one are framed. At the base of the wall on the floor, there is a tile mosaic that reads "Sex Hell" in red letters on a blue background. 

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Collections from Chris and Sophie Dikeakos, Gisele Amantea and Peter White, Ken Lum and Denise Oleksijczuk, Hank Bull and Kate Craig, and Renée Van Halm, artworks from approximately 40 artists

Private Eyes, What Artists Collect

This book was published in 2001 by the Contemporary Art Gallery, on the occasion of artist Ken Lum‘s exhibition at the Contemporary Art Gallery in its new facility at 555 Nelson Street, May 4 – July 14, 2001. This publication features a forward by Keith Wallace, and essay "Untitled (Ken)" by Michael Turner.


Ken Lum

Exhibitions

Publications & Editions