Everything is Relevant: Writings on Art and Life, 1991-2018
by Ken Lum
Everything is Relevant: Writings on Art and Life, 1991-2018 brings together texts by Canadian artist Ken Lum. They include a letter to an editor, diary entries, articles, catalogue essays, curatorial statements, and more. Along the way, the reader learns about late modern, postmodern, and contemporary art practices, as well as debates around issues like race, class, and monumentality. Penetrating, insightful, and often moving, Lum’s writings are essential for understanding his varied practice, which has often been prescient of developments within contemporary art.
Vancouver-born artist Ken Lum is known for his conceptual and representational art in a number of media, including painting, sculpture, and photography. He currently is the Chair of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design and he previously taught at Bard College and at the University of British Columbia. As an artist, he has exhibited at Documenta 11, the Venice Biennale, Shanghai Biennale, Carnegie International, and Whitney Biennial, among others. He is a co-founder and founding editor of Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art and in 2000 he worked as co-editor of the Shanghai Biennale. He is co-curator of Monument Lab: A Public Art and History Project in Philadelphia. In 2017, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.