Jenny Lam
Artist agent, independent curator, and freelance writer. Contemporary art journalist. Illustrator. Painter. Sculptor. Poet.
Columbia University alumnus with a BA in Visual Arts. World-traveling polyglot. Kyriarchy smasher. Pop culture enthusiast. Monosyllabic defenestrator.
Former precocious child. Current child at heart. Leo. Fire Rabbit. INTJ. Nerd.
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- May 24, 12I am back in Chicago, almost too jetlagged to be a functional member of society, wondering if the less-than-87%-humidity will dry out my skin, and missing Hong Kong dreadfully (I may or may not have typed that with a slight British accent in mind—damn you, remnants of Colonialism, telling me to “mind the gap” and “queue for lifts”!).
Oh, just kickin' it with my uncles. No big deal.
Finally, I’ve uploaded my photos of the art in Shanghai and Hong Kong to Flickr and Facebook! (Beijing photos can be found in these two posts.) I’ll focus on Hong Kong in my next post. In Shanghai…Respirator mask, dude.
…I’d been crashing in a room my cousin and his flatmate use to dry their laundry and stockpile their liquor (seems reasonable). My cousin’s girlfriend Maggie had the following to say about art in China: that “Beijing is more political,” whereas “Shanghai is more international,” and that, because of its political bent, “Beijing is more passionate about art and music” (the Chinese are all about rock, and I thank my Shenyang-living friend for introducing me to a slang phrase young people shout at rock concerts: “niu bi,” which is slang for “awesome” and literally translates to “cow vagina,” which makes the phrase even more awesome).Second city syndrome, anyone? As a local, Maggie obviously has a much more nuanced assessment of Shanghai and its relationship with the arts than I would. My explorations of the city, however, led me to believe that Beijing’s art scene has a formidable rival.Shanghai’s main art hub is the Moganshan Roadart district, which, like Beijing’s 798 Art Zone, comprises a complex of old warehouses converted into art galleries and studios. It’s less grandiose than 798, unsurprisingly, but it feels more accessible, and it isn’t without its fair share of provocative art. Moreover, Shanghai’s “international” character permeates its artistic community; among the first artists and gallerists I met there, for example, were expats from Seoul during an art opening at a Korean restaurant in the French Concession.But what I loved most was ambling beyond the central gallery cluster and losing myself in graffiti, whether it coiled along a wall or punctuated a vast expanse of vacant lots populated by squatter homes, roosters parading in and out of garbage piles, and urban ruins long forsaken, crumbling, simultaneously weighed down by time and held up by color, by paint, suspended in a silently beautiful balancing act.I spoke with a couple of the graffiti artists writing in broad daylight, and they explained that graffiti is, more or less, “tolerated.”What I also loved: When Maggie asked if Chicago still has gangsters “like in the movies.” My cousin and I told her that was almost a hundred years ago and that they bootlegged alcohol. Her response? “That’s not very gangster.” - May 23, 12Greetings from Hong Kong! The beautiful big city where people treat you like you’re family. Probably because they really are your family. (My dad’s side of the clan greeted me at the airport yesterday with fruit, biscuits, umbrellas, and an Octopus Card.) (The MTR is arguably the best subway system ever, but just the fact that its card is called an Octopus already means all’s right with the world.) How do you like the new header?This is a quick post—before I head to the ART HK Vernissage—to say that I’ll be posting the following very soon:
- Photos and words from Shanghai, a.k.a. Graffiti Heaven (well I made that up but really it is) (teaser below); and
- A post about art’s intersection with class. (Class as in rich vs. poor. And while I’m on that topic, let it be known that all VIP events and activities, including access to the fair itself, are free. I find that ironic.)
In the meantime…- Are you following me on Twitter? You should! I’ve been microblogging about this trip.
- In case you missed them, here are my last two trip-related posts: photos and words from Beijing and my musings on identity and culture.
- May 23, 12I’m on a bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai and the guy behind me is watching / loudly listening to some epic Chinese war movie (truly the best kind of movie) and I’ve got about an hour on my laptop battery
and it’s 106 miles to Chicago and I got a full tank of gas and half a pack of cigarettes and it’s dark and I’m wearing sunglassesso I’ll do what I do: write.I’ve spent the past couple days speaking in pretty much nothing but Cantonese, as one of my Hong Konger uncles, a talkative retired elementary school teacher, was in town. Cantonese was my first language, a fact I always forget (as a baby, I taught myself English by watching Sesame Street, and because of that, I will always love you, television), but Mandarin is Chinese and Chinese is Mandarin, and I don’t speak or understand it at all. Yet here I am. What follows, then, is a reflection on language, on identity, on identity crises, on the diasporal disconnect and angst of first-generation Americans, and on vague pronouns.
I am a true outsider.But allow me to start from the beginning.Or, at least, Saturday, my first full day in Beijing.I’d reunited with an old friend from college for the first time since graduation. He’s living in Shenyang and had hopped onto a train to Beijing—a 5-hour-long ride—to see me …and because he’s turning into That Guy who disappears on the weekends to kick it in a big city where there’s grass (this is not a euphemism) and where coffee shop owners aren’t baffled when you ask them if you can use their “community bulletin boards” to post your handmade flyers for an improv group you’re starting (apparently DIY culture is nonexistent in Shenyang).We’d made good use of the beautiful day, wandering around the 798 Art Zone; lazing on a lawn while catching up on each other’s lives and then getting yelled at by men in golf carts to get off said lawn; drinking too much sweet tea; eating great food, at one point alongside Buddhist monks donning designer sunglasses and sneakers; succumbing to our weaknesses for Communist kitsch (come on, who can resist adorable plush pigs in Red Guard uniforms?); playing China Bingo (“ah, there’s another middle-aged man with his shirt pulled up over his paunch”); and being baffled by the number of young women wearing cat ears (a fashion / style trend that hopefully will not catch on in the West).Later on we met up with his expat friends and friends of friends for dinner (at a Uyghur restaurant) and drinking (everywhere).Guided by the supermoon, it was, overall, a wonderfully crazy night that ended up with us crashing a Canadian expat bachelor’s party van [with overly friendly Frenchmen] that took us to a seedy nightclub with Russian whores and hookah and gold-plated toilets (my friend and a friend of his and I bounced within five minutes and instead opted for the great American staple of searching for drunk food—we kind of succeeded). And they were / are all lovely people. But…And now I shall switch tenses. (And inconsistently switch between first and second person. It’s my blog! I do what I want!)
Every single one of them is fluent in Mandarin, and every single one of them is white. They laugh over puns based on Chinese homonyms, over Chinese politics and public figures. They know how to navigate the city by bike, by cab, by train, by foot. They can converse effortlessly with the locals. I, meanwhile, am an ABC and speak not a word of Chinese. As I sit with the group, white kids joking in Chinese, the irony is not lost on me. (In fact, it oppressively hangs above me like aRussian stripper nightclub hookahcloud.)“In China we don’t talk about anything other than China,” they explain good-humoredly to try to include me in the conversation when I haven’t chimed in for an achingly awkward amount of time. (Suddenly it’s like an undergraduate seminar all over again; the less you speak, the more profound you’re expected to sound.) To have these white American expats know more about your motherland than you do, know your motherland more than you do… Really, you’ve come to realize, you don’t know your motherland at all.But even though you somewhat, sort of, maybe feel more at home in America, you are an outsider there as well. To most Americans, you look like a foreigner, even though you were born there and have lived there your entire lifeand most likely have a better grasp of the English language than they do.They ask you where you’re from, no where are you really from, no you know what I mean. They ask you what you “are” (human? about to run away from you? trying really hard not to kick you in the face?).Here and now, in China, the people look like me. They are, essentially, “my people.” Shouldn’t there be solidarity? Shouldn’t we be brothers and sisters? Shouldn’t there be tearful hugs and clasps of the hands? “Right? We built their fucking railroads, the ungrateful bastards.” But instead, I sheepishly shake my head and dig out a typed page of Chinese phrases while they smile confusedly and apologize.This is no Lost in Translation understated overrated nepotistic Coppola emo old fart pink wigged PYT Othered Asians as the backdrop hipster bullshit. I don’t want to hear it, Bill and ScarJo. Bitches, you’re white. You don’t need to say or do anything. You’re a walking “HELP ME” sign. Me? I have to endure a painful exchange of broken communication and broken expectations before they come to the realization that I am Not One Of Them.Here, my difference is invisible. In America, where I will always be labeled a foreigner, my sameness is invisible. In this sense, Asian-Americans aren’t the invisible minority; our faces scream without sound. Invisible are the real and imagined identities we struggle with every moment of our waking lives.Such is the inner anguish of the outsider.No matter where you go, you don’t belong, and you never will.But because you don’t belong anywhere, you are untethered. Because you are alone, you answer to no one. Because you have no place to call home, no place calls for you. You are free. You can roam. You can drift like a seed from the hero tree.Perhaps you belong everywhere.You are a child of the world. - May 24, 12Hello from Beijing! First things first: The Gozamos video interview of me at the I CAN DO THAT closing reception is up. Watch
me misuse the word “corkscrew” and talk with my hands / via hand flailinghere.All right. This. Place. Is. Unreal. I’d visited before as a teenager on a family vacation, hitting up all the requisite tourist attractions, and back then, Beijing felt like just another stop on a grand tour of the motherland. Or something. Coming here now, I didn’t expect to love it this much (no offense, Beijing), perhaps because my allegiances lie with Hong Kong, where I have family and have been visiting throughout my life. Well, I am absolutely enamored.Feathery white seeds from hero trees drift through the hutongs, an unceasing summer snowfall. People walk arm in arm with one another—men with men, women with women—slowly, leisurely, almost deliberately. There is a general sense of lingering, and because of this, there is life on the streets, manifesting itself in an intense outdoor game of Chinese checkers or…The art. The highlight is the 798 Art Zone. Take notes, Bushwick; 798 is an enormous industrial district of factories and warehouses converted into galleries, studios, and art spaces. (A friend told that me that he’d heard “they [nameless and faceless ‘they’] pour a lot of money into making it look run-down.” Sounds familiar [and reminds me ofWilliamsburgAmerican Poorgeoisie / Fauxhemians with their grainy desaturated photo filters spending a fortune to dress like hobos]. But even if it’s true, I don’t care. I fell for the ruse and I fell in love.)One could spend hours and hours wandering—it took me two days, and I still haven’t seen it all. Not even close. Photos of this art paradise here on Flickr and on Facebook.More details in my next post. - May 03, 12How did the artwork of I CAN DO THAT evolve over the course of two weeks? These are your creations and contributions! (For reception photos, check out this album.)My first art-related trip of the summer begins today! In a few hours I’ll be flying out to Beijing, next week I’ll be in Shanghai, and the following week I’ll be in Hong Kong, my parents’ home city. I’ll be exploring the Chinese art scene, looking slightly out of place among the other VIPs at ART HK, and trying not to get into [too much] trouble. See you on the other side!
- Apr 30, 12Me: “Sorry about your wall.”Roy, Variable Space owner-turned-friend remarkably tolerant of my tomfoolery: “No you’re not.”Me: “You’re right I’m not sorry at all.”
Photo by Sophia Nahli, 2012. Press from Friday: Here’sthe WBEZ clip in case you missed it live. I love how I CAN DO THAT was an “activist-style pick” and one of the ways to “change the world.” (Because I genuinely believe art canchange the world and, to take the conviction one / many step(s) further, isthemeaningoflifebuuuuuuuut that’s an entirely different blog post.) And here’s another feature on Chicagoist.Thank you. Everyone. I CAN DO THAT has been such an adventure. Everything I do is always getting bigger and bigger and better and better, and none of it has been / is possible without your support, encouragement, and passion. As always, if you took any photos at the closing reception, please email them to artists.on.the.lam{at} gmail {dot} com. Videos—like an interview by Gozamos (thank you, Abraham Velázquez Tello and Jennifer Patiño!)—coming soon.My next adventure? Summer travel—three days until my Beijing / Shanghai / Hong Kong trip! And in June, as I’ve mentioned before, I’ll be in Switzerland and Germany—specifically Zurich, Basel, Geneva, and Berlin, and possibly Lucerne, Bern, and Lausanne. (Speaking of travel, I just saw that my postcard project was featured on Roadmonkey. I don’t know who you are or how you found me but I love you.) I’ve RSVPed to the craziest things at ART HK. Get ready—you’re about to see the art worldthrough the eyes of a young Logan Square-living artist slash writer slash entrepreneur slash troublemaker subsisting mostly on Trader Joe’s cereallike you never have before. - Apr 27, 12Tune in to WBEZ at 5:50am and / or 7:50am CST to hear
some cartoon characterme ramble on about I CAN DO THAT. I’ll also provide a link once the clip is available online. Thank you, Alison Cuddy, for the interview!Congratulations to participating artist Glendalys Medina—she is a 2012 Visual Arts Rome Prize Fellow! The announcement ceremony was in New York just last night, so press photos and the like are forthcoming.The show closes tonight! Expect more of the magic from the opening reception, plus new ways to interact with the art, like an audience participatory performance by Caitlin Bergh, who was featured in the Tribune yesterday. Don’t miss it! - Apr 25, 12As I’d alluded to before in previous posts, I will be traveling to Hong Kong in May and Switzerland in June to attend ART HK and Art Basel, respectively. Today I am pleased to announce that I have been invited to participate in, well, invite-only events at both international art fairs as a VIP. Stay tuned throughout this summer for exclusive—like, literally exclusive—looks inside the art world!
- Apr 24, 12I got vidz.All related to I CAN DO THAT, of course.
First, here’s the web version of One Mic, the participatory performance piece by Bronx-based artist Glendalys Medina, whom I’d met at Bronx Calling: The First AIM Biennial during my most recent trip to New York. Read a couple of her interviews here and here. (Thanks, Alissa, for providing the TV!)At the opening reception, Peggy Shearn recorded the following outburst from art critic Prof. Arthur Typpe. (The greatest thing about this clip is the fact that you can see some visitors continuing about their artistic business as if nothing’s happening a mere three feet away from them. Behold! The power of art.)
And check out a new video of street artist Left Handed Wave doing what he does best:(Come to the closing reception and defacea banana man. You know you want to.)
But wait! There’s more! Peep the ever-expanding list of press coverage, now with added articles from Gozamos, Arts America, and Columbia Chronicle. Thanks, all! And look out for a feature in the summer issue of Landfills Magazine, due out this June. Thanks, Po Zimmerman, for a fun interview last week and for capturing me with Avisheh Mohsenin’s I Left A Piece Of Myself In…, which was built to Avisheh’s size. Which also happens to be my size. Huzzah for the small! (Please excuse my offensively dirty hair.)Lastly, thank you, Lee Eun Young, for the lovely afternoon of food, drink, and conversation. Eun Young, creator of Love Story, grew up in Korea, was educated in Paris, and has been living and working in The Netherlands for much of her life. Fellow citizens of the world, I salute you. - Apr 23, 12
Thank you, Sophia Nahli, for taking great photos of the I CAN DO THAT opening reception! View them here on Flickr and / or Facebook.
Photo by Sophia Nahli, 2012. And ICDT is on Sixty Inches From Center! Thank you for the write-up, Amanda Mead!
More photos to come! - Apr 16, 12THANK YOU, everyone, for making Friday night’s I CAN DO THAT opening such a great success!The turnout was insane (I’m talking shoulder-to-shoulder packed—well, in my case, more like shoulder-to-forehead), and, more importantly, it was wonderful to see how engaged with (participating artist Nikolas Burkhart told me about one visitor who spent 45 minutes trying to replicate one of his paintings) and even invested in (I had the privilege and honor of being witness to a group of visitors cheering when they managed to suspend a mass of pop can tabs in the middle of Angela Hearld’s sculpture via strings of hot glue) the art everyone was. Simply put, people had fun.Unlike most other gallery openings where you show up, make a beeline for the booze, socialize with the people you know, and then leave, all without so much as even glancing at the art (errr, not like I’ve done this myself or anything…), this art show was and is all about one thing: the art!If you took any photos, took any videos, have any questions or comments (ones I got that night: “This isn’t art time—it’s play time!,” “This is the most fun I’ve had at an art show ever,” “This is like a children’s museum… but for adults,” etc.), have any interesting or funny stories, and / or counted how many penises were drawn / painted / sculpted?… please email me at artists.on.the.lam {at}gmail {dot} com.And please save the date for the closing reception on Friday, April 27! More art, more fun, more madness, new performances! See how everything evolves over the course of two weeks! There will also be live nude painting. Now it’s a true art party.Until then, drop by anytime M–W, 10am–4pm (or make an appointment if those hours don’t work for you), and say hi!
- Apr 13, 12
- Apr 15, 12A couple announcementsbefore I get to more installation photos:
- I CAN DO THAT is in Time Out Chicago! I particularly enjoy the tags…
- Between the opening and closing receptions, gallery hours will be M–W, 10am–4pm, and by appointment.
And more photos!(From top to bottom, art by: Left Handed Wave, first profiled here, with another cameo by yours truly; Peggy Shearn, former Exquisite Corpse participant; Imaginathan (Nathan Stanton), quoted below; and Gabriel Garcia-Fraire, with an arrangement that allows gallery-goers to mimic the way he works.)On artists: “You’re creating. You’re creating something that didn’t exist before. That’s miraculous.”Wise words from participating artist Nathan Stanton, who literally gives away and leaves his artwork out on the street for the public to take. Part of a 2-hour-long conversation we had that included geeking out over the Beats, discovering that we share the same birthday, and thinking about putting a Slip ‘n’ Slide in the gallery, except with feathers instead of water. (Clarification: No, there will not be a Slip ‘n’ Slide at this show, which features nearly 70 works of art. Someday, however. Someday.)Tomorrow! - Apr 10, 12Craziness—craziness!—from the first two days of I CAN DO THAT installation.(From top to bottom: detail of DRIP-EX, a painting machine created by Chris Wille and Melanie Scott-Dockery; detail of Love Story by Lee Eun Young, who flew in all the way from Holland; Chris Busse’s potter’s wheel set-up—clay forthcoming!—and a cameo by yours truly; and detail of Avisheh Mohsenin’s conceptual piece—it is now suspended from the ceiling and looks even more beautiful than it does here.)And more. (Seriously, so much more. There are over 40 participating artists, after all.)
- Apr 06, 12I probablyshould’ve waited until next week to make a press roundup since these are popping up daily now, but… I CAN DO THAT is on Chicagoist!The show opens in exactly one week!
- Apr 05, 12A quick update to say: I CAN DO THAT is in The Huffington Post!Also: One week and one day until opening night!
- Apr 04, 12I CAN DO THAT is on Fear No ART Chicago as one of this month’s highlights! Thank you, Elysabeth!An excerpt from a GOOD article that I had to share:
But increasingly I've realized that for people like me, one creative outlet isn't enough. The most interesting, creative people I know express themselves in a variety of ways.
So. True. I’ve always been That Kid who did everything, but no matter what, I always want(ed) / need(ed) to do more.Aaaaand the view count on my postcard project Flickr album has pretty much doubled since the last time I told you about it. Unbelievable. And, since then, I’ve been thinking that, in addition to a book, I’d like to create a related website encouraging others to launch postcard-dream-map-whatever-projects (clearly I need to come up with a title for this) in their own cities. Go go global network of dreams! - Mar 27, 12Release the
KrakenI CAN DO THAT press… release! Read it here. The image used is Anti by participating artist Brandon Kirkman:Image courtesy of Brandon Kirkman.
At the show, a special guest / art critic will be making an appearance. He may or may not yell at you. Until then, you can follow his blog on the hip and not-dated-at-all platform that is LiveJournal.Ummmm so my postcard project Flickr album has been up for less than a week, yet it has, as of this typing, over 1,200 views already. Just… I mean… what. Seriously and simply: thank you. For sharing it and spreading the word, for your enthusiasm, for your excitement. I’m floored—the response has been downright overwhelming. People have been emailing me, telling me that they want to start the same project in their own cities, that they feel inspired to take action and realize their own dreams. And many of you are urging me to turn it into a book. And you know what? I will! - Mar 27, 12If you live in Chicago, you have seen the banana dude.
This one ironically not in Chicago but Brooklyn.
Image courtesy of Left Handed Wave, 2011.For I CAN DO THAT, the prolific young street artist known as Left Handed Wave will provide a large-scale black-and-white banana man for show-goers to fill in / add to / go nuts with. After the collaborative effort is complete, he'll paste it up on the street. It will be grand. Check out this video of LHW in action:Sadly, I’m allergic to bananas. And kiwis. And fabric softener. But rest assured that I’ll never be allergic to awesome art.Thank you to another I CAN DO THAT artist, Mister Vibe, for giving me a palm reading. Apparently I’m a “Fire Hand.” Note that I’m also a Leo and was born in the Year of the Fire Rabbit. So that’s three fire signs. And I’m an only child. Basically, I was predestined to be a troublemaker / be obnoxious.Speaking of which… gather ‘round and allow me to tell you about an old, still-untitled personal project I did a few years ago when I was in New York: From Fall 2008 through Spring 2009, I obsessively created hundreds of pre-stamped, self-addressed postcards, omitting my name. Written on each postcard was the prompt, “Tell me one thing you dream of doing before you die. Use this card as your canvas,” as well as a code on the bottom corner. I then left these postcards in public spaces all over Manhattan, using the codes to record where I placed each one. When the postcards returned to me, I was able to tell where each had been found, and I gradually pieced together a map of the city from all these people’s dreams.It was an exploration in breaking down barriers between the private and the public (by its nature, letter-writing is an intimate act—although with postcards, anyone who intercepts your card can read what you wrote—and here were these people sharing their deepest fears and hopes with me, a nameless, faceless stranger, perhaps emboldened by the safety net of anonymity, or motivated by that very human desire to connect, to know that someone, anyone, knows about you), between artist and audience (I may have been the originator of the project, but was I the artist or were these people the artists, or both?), and between geographical boundaries (did the dreams of Upper Eastsiders differ that greatly from those in Alphabet City? on Wall Street? would the fine upstanding citizens there even pay attention to a handmade postcard taped up onto a street light? etc. etc.).I’ve mentioned this project before, but learning about the new “Before I Die” installation in Pilsen is what prompted me to finally scan the postcards and try to share them online. For now, you can view them (uploaded in no particular order) here on Flickr (some replies NSFW).Lastly, happy vernal equinox! Although it’s been much more like summer here in the Chi. If I were a beach kind of person, I’d totally be at the beach right now. (#vampireproblems / we skipped leather jacket weather / no but seriously when will I be able to wear my blazers and leather jacket) - May 17, 12The artists for I CAN DO THAT have been selected! They hail from across the country and around the world, and there’s plenty of local talent as well. Congratulations to Alyssa Trainor, Angela Hearld, Avisheh Mohsenin, Brandon Kirkman, Brooks Golden, Caitlin Bergh, Carisa Mitchell, Chris Barrett, Chris Busse, Clarisse Perrette, David del Bosque, Dead Squirrel, DRIP-EX, Dubi Kaufmann, Emmanuel L. White Eagle, Fernanda Quaglia, Gabor E. Nagy, Gabriel Garcia-Fraire, Glendalys Medina, Gracie Cannell, Imaginathan, Janet Mamon, Jared Haberman, Kathleen Enright, Kev Anderson, Kyra Termini, Lee Eun Young, Left Handed Wave, Mister Vibe, Nancy Bechtol, Nikolas Burkhart, Noel DeGaetano, Pancho Panoptes, Patricia Biesen, Peggy Shearn, Peter Dzubay, Predrag Djordjevic, Rachel Dennis, Robin Jiro Margerin, Scot West, Sioban Lombardi, Zachary Trebellas …and you.Previews of the art to come!
- Mar 06, 12The artwork submission window for I CAN DO THAT is now closed! (Of course, almost half the total submissions came in the last couple days. Ahh, human nature. But at least no one did what I would’ve done in similar situations / in college, which would entail searching for and finding a corrupt file on my computer on Sunday night, renaming said file, and then attaching that file to an email, to which the poor professor it addressed would respond saying s/he can’t open the document and I’d email back after some time all “golly I wonder why Prof well see if this one works” and then attach the real completed assignment and still manage to get an A okay I do not condone this behavior nor will I ever fall for it.) (Sorry, professors.)To everyone who applied: Thank you! You’ll be hearing back from me by the end of the week. To everyone else: Many of the submissions are brilliant. I am beyond excited for this show.
- Feb 27, 12Artist applications for I CAN DO THAT are due in 1 week!If you live in Chicago, you will be seeing this (or a variation of it) around. Most likely hanging at the eye level of a hobbit.Note to ransom note-makers: The “D” was surprisingly difficult to find. Note to no one in particular: The figure is from a scan of a photocopy of a cut-out print-out of a scan of a print of an intaglio etching I made a few years ago. I am my own Richard Prince.I’ve added new buttons on the sidebar to make it easier for you to follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn (which I desperately need to update), and more. You’ll be kept up to date with all that
I findis interesting. And thank you for following / visiting this blog in the first place! Thanks to you, when I Google myself (don’t front—we all do it) now, I actually show up on the first page of results. Nothing short of a miracle considering there are about a billion (this is a fact) Jenny Lams in the world; I even know two others (one of them is an aunt of mine, but technically I came first, since she married into the Lamily). Continue being awesome! - Feb 21, 12One: Beginning in October, via social networking sites, in person, and here, I’ve been asking you who you think is the most overrated contemporary artist. I’ve received over 100 responses, not including the responses to those responses in what devolved into some very strange feuds (photography haters? who knew?). My main takeaway from sorting through all the answers? It’s amazing how many times people misspelled “Damien Hirst,” and it’s amazing how many ways in which that name can be misspelled. In honor of the Friday the 13th opening date for I CAN DO THAT, I present to you:Your Top 13 Overrated Artists:13 – (tie) Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Peyton, Jackson Pollock, Karen Kalimnik, Lady Gaga, Matthew Barney, Peter Max6 – Cy Twombly5 – Banksy4 – Tracy Emin2 – (tie) Damien Hirst, Thomas Kincaid1 – Jeff KoonsThoughts on the results?Two: The artist application deadline for I CAN DO THAT is two weeks from yesterday! Submit!And two not related to the show:Ein: Does art school matter? Find out with the artists behind The Drop Out Kids in my latest piece for Sixty Inches From Center (Part II to this article).Zwei: Flight tickets booked! This artist will be on the lam in: Beijing 5/4 – 5/9, Shanghai 5/9 – 5/15, and Hong Kong 5/15 – 5/22. I’ll be visiting artist studios, art galleries, art fairs, and more, and I’ll be sharing my shenanigans with you while I’m
therein Hong Kong and back in the States (a plague o’ both your houses, Great Firewall!). …I’ll also be in the Ladies’ Market haggling for more of those $3 plastic red watches that stop working after several weeks and at this point are pretty much just chunky bracelets with numbers on them. - Feb 14, 12If you check this blog regularly even when I haven’t made a new post (and for that I love you), you might’ve noticed some changes to the row of tabs above. The reason?My next show, I CAN DO THAT !Everyone: Save the date. The show opens Friday the 13th, April 2012.Artists / “artists”: Currently accepting submissions until March 5. Check out the open call and apply here.Everyone again / “everyone” / “again”?: Spread the word. Invite yourself to the event and then invite your friends / acquaintances / random people whose Facebook friend requests you reluctantly accepted. This is going to be good.
- Feb 07, 12For those who celebrate the [best] holiday [of the year], I hope you had a grand Chinese New Year. For those who don’t celebrate, I still hope you had a grand Chinese New Year. Because even if you don’t believe in the lunar calendar, the lunar calendar believes in you. Or something.Since I’ve been asked, I thought I’d clear things up: yes, I write all my own press releases and anything else that involves, well, words. (Which means, yes, I sometimes refer to myself in the third person.) (You, too, can have press releases written about you in the third person! That’s one of my services! Shameless self-promotion! But not really because this is my blog!)On the subject of writing, check out my latest Sixty Inches From Center article here and take a look inside Arow, a new artist collective that’ll convince you all is right with the world. Or, at least, with Chicago’s underground art scene and all its crazy cool kids.Most importantly, stay tuned for an announcement regarding my next show! As with Exquisite Corpse, there will be an open call for artists. Excitement.
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Hong Kong // ARTHK12 + the hidden art scenes of Chai Wan and Fo Tan
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- Artist, Artist Agent, Independent Curator, Freelance WriterFine Art | Greater Chicago Area, USSummary- Arts professional and practicing artist with
> extensive experience in project management and research, curatorial leadership, exhibition design, marketing and public relations, journalism, and archive administration;
> wide-ranging knowledge of the art industry from the auction house to the gallery to the nonprofit; and
> comprehensive writing background with a focus on poetry.
- Interested in critical theory and social activism—especially as expressed through art and culture—with issues pertaining to gender, race, and class.Specialties: - Intaglio, woodcut, oil, acrylic, plaster, ink, graphite, monochrome photography, digital photography, art history and theory - Adobe Photoshop CS3, MS Office, PC and Mac OSExperience- Jun 2011 - PresentIndependent Curator / Artist Agent / Freelance Writer / Selfhttp://artistsonthelam.blogspot.com
- Mar 2011 - PresentContemporary Art Journalist / Sixty Inches From CenterChicago, IL http://sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/archive
- Sept 2009 - PresentHead Curator / 4Art Inc.Chicago, IL – Independent gallery for emerging contemporary artists working across media • Lead and supervise the launch of an annual group show held in the 14,000 sq. ft. exhibition space of the internationally renowned Zhou B Art Center, elevating the gallery’s reputation in its industry while giving relatively unknown and rising artists significant exposure and publicity • Write and edit press releases, curator’s statements, calls for submissions, and artist biographies, enhancing the company’s image as a vibrant environment that cultivates creativity and innovation • Generate publicity and engage consumers through word of mouth, client interaction, and social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Flickr, extending the gallery’s reach and facilitating the company’s growth • Develop initiatives, such as an ongoing 4”x4” show, that target a wide range of market segments with diverse spending capacities, acquiring patrons new to the industry and winning their loyalty while vaulting the gallery ahead of competitors who disregard and alienate lower price segments • Train and delegate assignments to interns, maximizing productivity
- Jan 2009 - Jun 2009Post-War and Contemporary Art Intern / Christie'sNew York, NY – World’s leading art auction house • Spearheaded a special project for specialists’ presentations by writing thoroughly researched speaking points that highlighted the value proposition of each artwork, lauded by the department head as “unprecedented in its benefit to the marketing effort” • Wrote captions, edited manuscripts, researched consignments, and selected images for sales catalogues, augmenting the appeal of the Spring Sales and contributing to their success • Initiated and directed the creation of an intern manual by writing tutorials on all procedures, saving employees valuable time and synthesizing information dissemination • Ensured the accuracy of sales estimates under urgent deadlines by selecting works comparable to those in current appraisals and researching their prices realized, helping minimize business risks • Conducted market intelligence by recording competitors’ estimates and sales results immediately upon disclosure of figures, helping improve the company’s competitive advantage in the marketplace
- Sept 2007 - May 2009President / PostcryptNew York, NY – Only organization at Columbia dedicated to the exhibition of undergraduate art • Reinvented and expanded the gallery’s scope beyond art shows by envisioning, planning, and executing large-scale functions such as multimedia and music festivals, participatory public art happenings, and collaborations with other student groups, garnering acclaim from the Columbia University Spectator that the gallery “isn’t afraid to push the envelope” • Launched publicity stunts and originated a weekly electronic newsletter with over 800 subscribers, increasing meeting attendance by 229%, artist submissions by 67%, and followers by 38% • Created and successfully implemented profit-turning enterprises, such as silent auctions and official merchandise, investing the revenue towards the enrichment of and publicity for free events • Coached and advised board members, curators, artists, and other gallery staff, guiding 44% of assistant curators to assume executive positions of their own, with 63% of 2008-9’s elected board members having joined the previous year • Ignited and facilitated the proliferation of other student-run groups such as The Artist Society and the Columbia University Photography Society, revitalizing and revolutionizing the campus arts scene
- Sept 2006 - May 2009Illustrator / The Blue and WhiteNew York, NY
- Sept 2008 - Dec 2008PR Assistant / Intern / EyebeamNew York, NY – America’s leading nonprofit art and technology center • Compiled specialized press kits and customized publicity packages for distribution to national and metropolitan media outlets, helping optimize Eyebeam’s market positioning • Streamlined the organization of electronic press mentions onto del.icio.us, simplifying the company’s archival system and improving office efficiency • Overhauled and consolidated the in-house presentation of promotional materials, increasing work productivity • Assisted in expanding targeted mailing lists, presenting new media to a continually growing audience
- Jun 2007 - Aug 2007Art Camp Counselor / YMCAChicago, IL
- Jun 2006 - Aug 2006Art Camp Counselor / YMCAChicago, IL
- Sept 2003 - Jun 2005Founder / President / English Tutor / New HorizonsChicago, IL – Nonprofit English tutoring program for inner-city immigrant youth • Liaised with the Chairman of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of Chicago and with local businesses, securing classrooms while obtaining financial sponsorship from the CCBAC and free catering from local restaurants, who in turn received publicity for their services • Wrote and designed publicity materials and networked with the press, gaining media attention in China Journal, China Star, and Chinese American • Motivated peers to volunteer as tutors and to donate books and other resources, eliminating expenditures • Assessed students’ language proficiencies and learning abilities, assigning tutors to students and amplifying the program’s efficacy • Formulated personalized course curricula and documented each student’s progress, one student becoming a tutor herself within one year in the program
Education-
2005 - 2009Columbia University in the City of New YorkBA in Visual Arts, Creative Writing
Activities: President of Postcrypt Fall 2007 - Spring 2009, Co-Coordinator and Head Curator of Collision Fall 2008 - Spring 2009, Illustrator for The Blue & White Fall 2006 - Spring 2009, Community Impact Fall 2007 - Spring 2008, Art of Community Campaign Fall 2007 - Spring 2008
Additional Information-
Websites:
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Honors:Dean's List, 2005-2009
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Tweets
- New post! Check out my #art adventures in #Shanghai--incl. #Graffiti and #StreetArt off the beaten path--plus photos! http://t.co/Y5EQzozKMay 24, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Lost Bag / United Sucks Saga ends: Suitcase + I are together at last. Everything smells like LUSH's American Cream Conditioner. All is well.May 24, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- By the time I get over the jetlag from my China-HK trip, I'll be on my Switzerland-Berlin trip. #TravelerProblems #NoRightToComplainButStillMay 23, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Too sleepy to be a functional member of society. #EastToWestJetlagIsTheWorst #TravelerProblemsMay 23, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Photos from my #art adventures in #HongKong and #China on Flickr now include #Shanghai http://t.co/3KYmwEi5 and #HK http://t.co/A3jaA78H!May 23, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- United sucks. Don't patronize them! In my Lost Bag Saga, today they delivered the completely wrong bag to me--wrong address, #, everything.May 23, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- The Sunlight Foundation released a study that measures the speaking levels of the members of the 112th Congress: http://t.co/SCap1hQl #WelpMay 22, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- (cont.) Soooo send suitcase-locating-and-returning vibes, plz. On the bright side, I just got my Art Basel Vernissage pass! 2 weeks, Europe!May 22, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Photos of #Shanghai's Moganshan Rd. #art district https://t.co/k3vq1yDM + #ARTHK12 and #HongKong's hidden art scene https://t.co/4rSO2298!May 21, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Solar Eclipse 2012: How To See The May 20 Annular Eclipse (Map, Photos): http://t.co/Ak9oJEjS (USA)
- OK, art-related: You have to know where to look to truly experience #HK's local #art scene, but it exists. Stay tuned @ http://t.co/Ph3Vf8GKMay 20, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- The average person in #HK dresses / styles himself like he's a member of a pop punk band from 2003. Let that mental image sink in for a bit.May 20, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- P.S. Hey #Chicago, how's the NATO summit clusterf*ck?May 19, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Among many other adventures today / tonight, stumbled upon the Hong Kong Arts Centre Open House + it's a gem--near #ARTHK12 too. Go, HKers!May 19, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Excited to visit #ChaiWanMei studios today! Hashtag followers, look for me in the Misfits tee + the shoes in http://t.co/Ph3Vf8GK's header.May 18, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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