Biography of Ken Lum & Hubert Damisch
Ken Lum (born 1956 in Vancouver, Canada) is a Canadian artist whose origins as the grandson of an immigrant laborer from southern China have profoundly marked his practice. Focusing on issues of identity and representation, Lum has developed a technique of portraiture that ranges from photographic images—much of them staged—to linguistically based signage, to monuments, and civic sculptures that capture diversity and demographic detail.
Hubert Damisch (born 1928 in Paris, France) is a French philosopher whose analysis of images has spanned from art, to architecture, to film, and the museum itself. Damisch's practice is known for its skillful blend of historic detail with a sensitivity of perception rendering the philosophical as a poetic act. He has spent much of his academic career holding prestigious guest professorships at institutions such as Columbia University, New York City; the Getty Research Institute, Malibu; and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Washington, D.C.