WATTS INDEXThe canonical database of visual culture

Artists›Ken Lum

Ken Lum

1956

WA-00003849

PhotographyPhotography

Representation

None documented

Institutional Exhibitions

Works in Collection

Assets Indexed

Authority-backed Facts

Publications Referenced

80%

Profile Completeness

Cultural Positioning

Influence Graph

No influence edges encoded yet.

Authority Records (1)

WikidataQ2583093

Field Verification (2 fields)

2 cross-verified · 0 single-source

Birth yearArtsy + Duplicate Merge· 85%✓
NationalityArtsy + Duplicate Merge· 85%✓

Source Registry (1)

Paula-Cooper
Tier 3 · Scraped/inferred60%

About

Why this artist matters now

Ken Lum works across painting, sculpture, and photography to examine identity, language, and portraiture through a practice that moves between conceptual and representational modes. His work frequently pairs text with image, using the friction between them to expose the spatial and social politics embedded in everyday representation. Lum has held a professorship at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania since 2012, where his academic role and artistic output remain closely linked. The work carries a dry, politically alert humor that resists straightforward reading without sacrificing accessibility.

Source: Paula Cooper · Trust score: 60% · Updated 3mo ago

Graph relationships

Taste overlap and adjacency

Movement

Photography

Medium

Photography

Related Artists

12 in graph

Canonical record

Artworks (3)

WattsOS

Schnitzel Company from the Museum in Progress project Worlds of Work

2004 · Seven lithographs, offset printed

sheet (each): 18 1/2 x 12 3/8" (47 x 31.5 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

WattsOS

Untitled from the Museum in Progress project With an Open Mind - Tolerance and Diversity

2002 · Four lithographs, offset printed

sheet (.a): 18 1/2 x 12 3/8" (47 x 31.5 cm); sheet (.b): 22 7/16 x 15 3/4" (57 x 40 cm); sheet (.c): 18 1/2 x 12 3/8" (47 x 31.5 cm); sheet (.d): 22 7/16 x 15 3/4" (57 x 40 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

WattsOS

There is no place like home from the Museum in Progress project Interventions: Large Scale Picture

2000 · Three lithographs, offset printed

sheet (two-page spread each): 18 5/16 x 24 13/16" (46.5 x 63 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Artwork sources (2)

3 published of 5 catalogued · 2 with image

MoMA
3 published
+ 1 more source · 2 catalogued, not yet published

Record

Images

9 assets

Art Institute of Chicago

Artsy

Art Institute of Chicago

Wikimedia Commons (Instagram fallback)

Wikimedia Commons (Instagram fallback)

Across Time and Space, Two Children of Toronto Meet

Wikimedia Commons (Instagram fallback)

Wikimedia Commons (Instagram fallback)

View all 9 media items →

Relationships

Movements1

Photography

Background

Education

Simon Fraser University

Visual Arts

University of British Columbia

Visual Arts

Gladstone Secondary School

Visual Arts

Record

Exhibitions and timeline

No exhibitions or timeline entries yet