KEN LUM

(CANADIAN, BORN 1956)

The Space Between Scott and Plessy, 2013
cast bronze, wood, mixed media
dimensions variable
Laumeier Sculpture Park Commission, with funds from the Mark Twain Laumeier Endowment Fund and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Ken Lum connects the cities of St. Louis and New Orleans through people. Dred Scott and Homer Plessy were both men of color (as then defined) whose challenge of laws allowing segregation—both before and after the Civil  War—gives them an important place in the annals of American history. With The Space Between Scott and Plessy, 2013, Lum memorializes the two men in the arch-traditional form of a three-quarter bronze bust. Separated but equal, the two figures gaze at each other across the land, surrounded by small plots of flowers native to our unique communities. The Space Between Scott and Plessy continues Lum’s exploration of shifting demographics in our modern world and comments on globalization as not just about the movement of money, but also a more unfettered connection between peoples of different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds.

A Space Between: Ken Lum and a Case of Mistaken Identity

Sculpture Interaction Guideline: Look, But Do Not Touch

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Ken Lum received his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences at Simon Fraser University in 1980. He received his M.F.A. from the University of British Columbia in 1985. Lum has had solo exhibitions at Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada; Jancou Geneva; Galerie Nelson-Freeman, Paris; Misa Shin Gallery, Tokyo; Galerie Christian Nagel, Berlin; Galeria Llucia Homs, Barcelona, Spain; Galerie Grita Insam, Vienna; Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing; Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York; Camden Arts Centre, London; Museum in Progress/Arbeiterkammer Wien, Vienna; Galeria Espacio Electico, Buenos Aires; Centre for Contemporary Art, Kitakyushu, Japan; Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland. His selected group exhibitions include the 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, 2012; the Museum of Contemporary Art of the National University of Mexico, Mexico City; the 7th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea; the 10th Istanbul Biennial, 2007; the Liverpool Biennial, UK, 2006; White Columns Gallery, New York; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; Wäinö Aaltonen Museum, Turku, Finland; Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany, 2002; Kunstlerhaus, Vienna; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; the 49th Biennale of Venice (Arsenale), Venice, 2001; Shanghai Biennale 2000, Shanghai Art Museum; PS1 Center for Contemporary Art, New York; Vienna Secession; the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, South Africa, 1998; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the Museum of Modern Art, Bolzano, Italy; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museo del Oeste, Caracas, Venezuela; the 1992 Sydney Biennale, Art Gallery of New South Wales; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, London. Lum was co-curator of the 10th Sharjah Biennial in 2011.