Ken Lum was born in Vancouver, Canada, the son of Chinese parents. He studied chemistry in college, focusing on pheremones of insects, but at a certain point he started studying art and making art, especially, monuments to slices of hidden history. like the huge crossroads sign”East Van” which commemorates a popular grafitti tag for the impoverished neighborhood, East Vancouver. That sign quickly became a symbol of pride for the community. Lum studied with Jeff Wall and Ian Wallace and his work has represented Canada at Documenta XI, the Carnegie International and many biennials around the world. He moved to Philadelphia in 2012 to head up the Fine Arts Undergraduate Program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design. Right now, you can see work by Ken at his solo exhibition, The Mini-Mall Series, at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery. AND, coming in March, his work will be in the 2014 Whitney Biennial! An astute observer of the city, in this clip from our interview Lum talks about Philadelphia being on the point of change and how that can be good and bad. Next week we’ll have the full interview. See his Wikipedia page for more.
