Ken Lum: Death and Furniture

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Ken Lum, "Death and Furniture," 2022

installation view, Remai Modern, Photo: Carey Shaw.

This exhibition brings together a small but impactful career-spanning selection of work by this senior, internationally celebrated Canadian artist. The exhibition uses as its starting point the new body of work, Time. And Again. (2021), in which Lum uses his characteristic image-and-text format to explore the intersections of work and stress, persistent concerns throughout our lives that came into extreme focus during the global pandemic. 

Lum’s work has shown remarkable diversity over the course of his 40-year career. This exhibition focuses on selections that showcase the artist’s interest in how we make meaning for ourselves in a society that aims to eliminate individuality.  

In addition to this series that investigates issues such as labour, mental health, and death, the exhibition includes a number of Lum’s Furniture Sculptures, works that, through simple conceptual gestures, transform everyday furniture into sculptural experiences.   

Death and Furniture, a phrase used in philosophical circles to argue that there is a bedrock of reality in which we all exist, may sound a bleak title. In fact, it reflects the singular humour with which Lum articulates his questions about this astonishing and terrible time in which we live.