Ken Lum combines photographic images and texts, language and sculptural elements in order to question class affiliation and ethnic diversity in Western society, as well as the presentation of individuality within a socially and economically coded urban space. For Karlsplatz he developed a new billboard in which moments of normativity and difference meet in the marketing language of public policies.
„The people in his pictures are rooted in families, communities and nations, but are swept up in historical and economic movements which transform personal bonds and settled lifepatterns in ways which lead alternately to liberation from some things and enslavements to others.“ (Jeff Wall: „Four Essays on Ken Lum”, in KEN LUM, published in conjunction with the exhibition KEN LUM, Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1990, p.25.)
Besides Ken Lum’s artistic intervention on Karlsplatz, artists Ron Terada and Pierre Bismuth developed site specific billboards playing with the subtexts of advertising campaigns and construction signs.
Curator
Anne Faucheret