#5WomenArtists: Nikki S. Lee
Photographer Nikki S. Lee is a South Korean-born artist who bases her practice in New York City. As the Museum of Contemporary Photography notes:
Her work is … unmistakably informed by Asian notions of identity, where identity is not a static set of traits belonging to an individual, but something constantly changing and defined through relationships with other people.
This is quite evident in her two major publications, Projects (Hatje Cantz, 2001) and Parts (Hatje Cantz, 2005). In her acclaimed Projects, for which she received a 2001 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, Lee documents her transformation (sometimes drastic) and assimilation into a wide range of subcultures, and social and ethnic groups–from yuppies to punks, strippers, swing dancers, skateboarders, and “white trash” in American trailer parks. For Projects, she identified a particular group in society, infiltrated it over a period of weeks or months and then, after entering wholly into her new identity, handed her camera to someone else to have a snapshot taken in her chosen milieu. The result is an authenticity that goes beyond the Cindy Sherman approach. Here we show examples from the Hispanic, Lesbian, Seniors, and Schoolgirls projects.
In Parts, Lee offers a different take on cultural identity–for which she has since become internationally known–to explore the ways more intimate relationships affect who we are. As ever, Lee appears in each photograph, and each is shot by someone else. Now, however, she portrays herself as part of a dyad with a male partner, who is then partially sliced out of the image, as if after a breakup. These halved images clearly and disturbingly point out the empty spots, the striking dependencies and ways that we all–women particularly–may define ourselves through our partners. Parts is divided into four photographic sections. We are showing examples from the Parts: 2002-2003 and the Bourgeoisie: 2004 sections. On a lighter note, Parts seems particularly appropriate in this time of social distancing.😊
#5WomenArtists is social media challenge put out by the National Museum of Women in the Arts to “ recognizes how women are using art to make change and drive awareness about globally relevant issues and topics.”
View our other posts from this month on #5WomenArtists.
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