Kenneth Lum OC, DFA, MFA

Artist; Professor, University of Pennsylvania; Co-Founder & Senior Curatorial Advisor, Monument Lab

Kenneth Robert Lum, OC, DFA, MFA, is an artist whose practice spans multiple media and genres, including painting, sculpture, and photography. Born and raised in Vancouver in 1956, he has work in numerous collections, including Tate Modern (London), the Kunstmuseum Luzern, the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), the Moderna Museet (Stockholm), and most recently, the Powerhouse Museum (Sydney, Australia). Since 2012, Lum has been a Professor in the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He previously taught at the University of British Columbia and L'École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris. Lum has received numerous awards, including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (1999), the Officer of the Order of Canada (2017), a Pew Fellowship (2018), the Gershon Iskowitz Prize (2020), the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts (2020), and the Scotiabank Photography Award (2023). He is a co-founder and founding editor of the Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, as well as a co-founder and senior curatorial advisor for Monument Lab, a Philadelphia-based public art and space think tank.