Kang Seung Lee
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Biography
Kang Seung Lee (b. 1978) was born in Seoul, South Korea and lives and works in Los Angeles. His practice examines themes of identity, community, and collective memory, frequently addressing the legacy of transnational queer histories as they intersect with art history. Committed to the handcrafted and anti-monumental, Lee explains, “My work comes from the desire to challenge the narrow perspective of the biased and first-world-oriented timeline of history, and it speaks about the potential to intervene in ordered systems as manifested in the form of visual marks, traces, and indexes.”
Lee’s process begins with research and results in delicately-composed drawings, embroidered works, installations, videos, and performances—all of which he views as “tangible and direct means of ‘caring for’ the past.” His artworks incorporate archival and natural materials, which bear witness to collective traumas, most notably the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Lee memorializes artistic figures who died from AIDS-related complications, recontextualizing the creative contributions and biographies of individuals such as Goh Choo San, José Leonilson, and Martin Wong. Processing grief across generations and cultures, Lee expresses resistance to cultural amnesia through naturalistic drawings of photographs and artworks that erase their human subjects, smudging out their presence to speak to the poignancy of loss.
Lee’s installations are primarily composed of organic materials like parchment, antique gold-coated Japanese silk thread, and sambe—a traditional Korean woven hemp textile associated with funerals—as well as flora, soil, and other terrestrial objects gathered from sites significant to his subjects. He describes, “[through] the process of collecting materials or making them into art my physical or artistic labor is made visible … I put a lot of effort into carefully and rigorously choosing each material through associations of meaning, but I also allow myself to play more freely and intuitively … It creates this space for bodily experience through artistic labor that cannot easily be put into words.”
Within individual works and series, Lee often combines references to multiple individuals, forging intergenerational and transcultural connections. He gathers discrete iconographies and materials in multimedia assemblages and multipart installations, such as those presented at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024. Stitching together histories, Lee pays homage to psychic connections and shared experiences between pivotal figures of queer culture including Tseng Kwong Chi and Joon-soo Oh. Challenging viewers to imagine new possibilities for connection and empathy, Lee upholds, “My mining of queer archives definitely started from the desire to be connected and to be part of a lineage ... I feel like this way of working across time, distance, space, caregiving, touring, artmaking, teaching, research, etc. is a form of continued public and privately negotiated dialogue, writing, and rewriting.”
Lee’s work has been the subject of numerous solo presentations, including Sala de Vídeo: Kang Seung Lee, MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo), Brazil (2024); Who will care for our caretakers, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul, South Korea (2023); The Heart of A Hand, Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles College, Monterey Park, CA (2023); Briefly Gorgeous, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, South Korea (2021); Permanent Visitor, Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, CA (2021); Becoming Atmosphere, 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA (2020); and untitled (la revolución es la solución!), Artpace, San Antonio, TX (2017), among others. Lee has participated in many group exhibitions, including Foreigners Everywhere, 60th Venice Biennale, Italy (2024); Out of the Night of Norms (Out of the Enormous Ennui), Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2023); We Cry Poetry, de Appel, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2023); documenta fifteen, Kassel, Germany (2022); Soft Water, Hard Stone, New Museum Triennial, New York, NY (2021); Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning, 13th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2021), among others. Lee's work is in the collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo), Brazil; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul, South Korea; Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA; RISD Museum, Providence, RI; Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, CA; Sunpride Foundation, Hong Kong; and Akeroyd Collection, among others. He is the recipient of many grants and awards including the Artadia Award (2023); MacDowell Fellowship (2022); apexart New York International Open Call (2019); and Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant (2018), among others. In 2023, he was a finalist for the Korea Artist Prize. Kang Seung Lee is also represented by Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles and Mexico City, and Gallery Hyundai, Seoul.
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Exhibitions
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Public Collections
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, CA
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul, South Korea
MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo), Brazil
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
Sunpride Foundation, Hong Kong -
Videos
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Kang Seung Lee
UC Davis Art Studio 26 March 2024Kang Seung Lee is a multidisciplinary artist who was born in South Korea and now lives and works in Los Angeles. His work frequently engages...Watch -
Kang Seung Lee: la revolución es la solución!
Los Angeles County Museum of Art 18 April 2022la revolución es la solución! stems from activist responses to the 1991 murder of Latasha Harlins. Kang Seung Lee uses kites associated with Korean memorial...Watch
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News / Events
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Kang Seung Lee: Lost & Found: Embodied Archive
Singapore Art Museum (SAM) October 25–November 24, 2024Kang Seung Lee's solo exhibition, Lost to & Found: Embodied Archive at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), will be on view from October 25–November 24,...Read more -
Kang Seung Lee
Spirit House at Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University September 4, 2024–January 26, 2025Kang Seung Lee is included in the group exhibition, Spirit House at Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, on view through January 26, 2025. The Cantor...Read more -
Sala de Vídeo: Kang Seung Lee
Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) August 23–October 27, 2024Kang Seung Lee's solo exhibition, Sala de Vídeo: Kang Seung Lee at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) is on view from...Read more -
Kang Seung Lee
Entangled Writing at Manetti Shrem Museum, University of California, Davis August 8–December 29, 2024Kang Seung Lee is included in the group exhibition, Phillip Byrne, Beatriz Cortez, Kang Seung Lee, Candice Lin: Entangled Writing, at Manetti Shrem Museum, University...Read more -
Kang Seung Lee
Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere at the 60th Venice Biennale April 20–November 24, 2024Kang Seung Lee is included in the 60th International Art Exhibition, titled Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, is on view through April 20–September 30, 2024,...Read more
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Articles / Reviews
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Queer Artists Brought Pain, History, and Hope to the 60th Venice Biennale
ARTnews28 June 2024 Deep within the cavernous Arsenale di Venezia, amidst hundreds of works on view at the 60th edition of the Biennale,... -
Kang Seung Lee: The Presence of This Void
Art Asia Pacific30 April 2024 Friendship, kinship, community—how can these interpersonal connections be established and maintained across geographies and even across generations? The multiplicity of... -
Foreigners Everywhere: A Triumphant, Anthemic Venice Biennale for the Stateless Queers in All of Us
Bmore Art26 April 2024 Some of the strongest queer art on view in Foreigners Everywhere is easy to miss, tucked away in a series... -
Everything is Circulating
Harper's Bazaar Korea25 April 2024 Kang Seung Lee, who was born in Korea and is currently based in LA, illuminates the transnational queer history and... -
Artist Lee Kang-seung's mission to unearth forgotten queer narratives
The Korea Times9 November 2023 Within his dreamlike world of gold-threaded embroidery, graphite drawings and collaborative performances, artist Lee Kang-seung imagines a conversation across time... -
Intergenerational Care: Kang Seung Lee’s Queer Archives
Art in America27 October 2021 The works of Kang Seung Lee evoke the intergenerational care required to preserve queer legacies. Using fragile materials—plants that can... -
Kang Seung Lee: Hand-Body Connection
Art Asia Pacific1 September 2021 Kang Seung Lee’s practice could be considered the artistic equivalent of alchemy. While all artists conjure ideas, feelings, and perceptions... -
Artists in a Post-George Floyd, Mid-Pandemic World
The New York Times13 May 2021 Two shows that recently opened at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art are keyed to our new normal: One came...
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