Ken Lum brings together more than four decades of the artist’s multidisciplinary practice, situating photography within a body of work that also encompasses conceptual art, installation, painting, sculpture and public projects. Published by Steidl in 2024, the book centers on Lum’s sustained examination of identity and urban life: how individuals are represented, how collective histories inhabit public space, and how cultural difference shapes encounters with the modern world.
The photographic selection spans several distinct periods. It includes “Portrait/Logos” (1984–86), the continuing “Portrait/Repeated Text Works” begun in 1993, and “Image Mirrors” from 2021. Seen together, these series reveal the persistence of Lum’s concerns while registering changes in form and historical circumstance. His photographs can describe recognizable social worlds while unsettling the conventions through which those worlds are read; the personal and political remain closely joined rather than treated as separate domains.
Historical trauma and the instability of memory provide a broader frame for the work. Lum’s attention extends from individual and collective identity to racism, religious suppression, social hierarchy and other structures of power. The volume also addresses Monument Lab, the public-art initiative he co-founded with urban geographer Paul Farber. Its critical inquiry into the past, present and future of monuments connects Lum’s photographic practice to debates over commemoration, civic space and the authority to shape public history.
For collectors, the book’s importance lies not in claims of scarcity but in the breadth and continuity of the material assembled. The juxtaposition of early, ongoing and recent photographic series allows Lum’s methods and recurring questions to be considered across time, while Monument Lab places them within an expanded public practice. At 256 pages, this hardcover publication offers a substantial point of reference for readers interested in photography’s intersections with language, representation, memory and urban politics.
