Untitled (Artspeak?), 2014-2015
KCET Artbound by Christopher Michno
Untitled (Artspeak?) came from a desire to create a critical/queer history of art. The book Artspeak has been widely used in art education because it contains popular/general knowledge about art and world history. However, while the book tries to establish connections between art history and general world history, it also reveals the biased – first world, white male and monumental artists oriented - timeline of history making.
In order to challenge this narrow, and often colonial perspective, I invited a number of collaborators with very diverse backgrounds (female, black, queer, immigrant, etc.) and asked them to “edit” one page of the timeline section of the book. The connection each of them has with their page is the year of their birth, which puts them in the role of historian as they include and exclude certain events, art works, music, books, images, personal histories from each of the years. The results are poster-sized drawings (made by me, edited by them) that become portraits of the collaborators, and that speak about margins, interpretation, rewriting, labor, etc.
Untitled (Artspeak?), 2014 – ongoing
Works exhibited
- 19 drawings (approx. 38 x 52 inches, 2014 – 2015, ink, watercolor, colored pencil, acrylic, oil, gouache, marker, pen, pencil, collage and mixed media on paper)
- 3 books (1st edition Artspeak by Robert Atkins, 1st edition Untitled (Artspeak?) by Kang Seung Lee, 2nd edition Untitled (Artspeak?) by Kang Seung Lee- published by Pitzer College Art Galleries)
Untitled (Artspeak?) is in collaboration with
Alexandra Juhasz
Alice Könitz
Alice Lang
Beatriz Cortez
Cirilo Domine
Gina Osterloh
Jen Hutton
Jennifer Moon
Kaucyila Brooke
Lecia Dole-Recio
Leslie Dick
Lucia Prancha
Michael Ned Holte
Millie Wilson
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Pilar Gallego
Stephanie Deumer
Tom Knechtel
Von Curtis & Ofelia Marquez
Yong Soon Min
Young Chung
All photography by Ruben Diaz and Joo Hoon Sin
1st edition of Untitled(Artspeak?) by Kang Seung Lee was published in conjunction with Untitled(Artspeak?) at the California Institute of the Arts (with essay by Jen Hutton, designed by SoYun Cho)
2nd edition of Untitled(Artspeak?) by Kang Seung Lee was published in conjunction with Untitled(Artspeak?) at Pitzer College Art Galleries, Pitzer College, CA (curated by Ciara Ennis, with essays by Ciara Ennis, Leslie Dick, and Jen Hutton, designed by SoYun Cho)
