About the artist
Ken Lum (born in Vancouver in 1956) employs a complex repertoire of artistic strategies in his work. He combines images and texts, display elements and language, and uses these aspects to showcase how identity is formed through the overlap between different systems of signs. In formal terms, Lum draws on the aesthetics of common advertising formats, such as billboards, using their vocabulary of typography, slogans, and images. Contrary to the functional language of advertising, however, Lum confronts the viewers with ambivalent messages, inviting them to look beyond the glossy surface to the fears and contradictions involved in a globalized world where disparate traditions meet.
