Nikki S. LEE KOREA/US, b. 1970
"My work is really simple, actually. I'm just playing with forms of changing."
- Nikki S. Lee
Born Lee Seung-Hee in Korea, Lee dreamed of a career as a movie actress, before deciding filmmaking was a more practical and attainable artistic vocation. Her parents discouraged her from entering cinema school, but approved of her interest in photography.
After moving to New York City, she selected her American name, Nikki S. Lee. She worked as an assistant to fashion photographer David LaChapelle, while studying fashion and commercial photography. In 1999, the artist left the realm of commercial photography in order to pursue her own artwork; her work quickly achieved acclaim after her first exhibition in New York.
Lee is perhaps best known for her “Projects” series (1997–2001), in which she practiced and performed the codes and visual signs of specific American sub-cultures, including yuppies, swing dancers, drag queens, hip hop fans, and senior citizens. A point-and-shoot camera, wielded by a member of the selected group or a passerby, recorded her transformation and interactions. Lee believes that individual identity is fluid and that her Projects were extensions of herself.
More recently, she created her “Parts” series (2002–2005), in which she explores the impact of relationships on identity. She appears in seemingly candid snapshots, from which the male member of a failed relationship has been excised.
Lee’s 2006 film, A.K.A. Nikki S. Lee, rejected the conventional approach to documentary and narrative fiction as mutually exclusive genres. She directed the film and portrayed two characters, both of whom were artificial versions of Nikki S. Lee.
Nikki S. Lee (b. 1970, Geochang, South Korea, lives and works in Seoul) has held solo exhibitions at GAK, Bremen; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; Cleveland Museum of Art; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; and Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. Her works have been included in group exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Gwangju Biennale; Istanbul Biennial; Liverpool Biennial and more. Her works are in the collections of major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Busan.
