L. A. Galerie is showing mirror diptychs, each consisting of two mirror panels hinged together and bearing cross-references in the form of inscriptions. The mirrors are so tall and wide (2 m and 1 m respectively) that you can see yourself entirely when standing in front of them. Thus a whole-figure portrait of the viewer is created, with the inscription serving as the title of the portrait, as it were.

The two sentences you read looking in one and then the other mirror articulate strong feelings and moods: anger ("what the hell did you do that for? / what the hell were you thinking?"), despair ("I can't go on like this / I can't keep this up anymore"), and excitement ("ohhh baby. you are looking good. / you are looking so good"). What's curious about these phrases is how familiar they seem to us. As consumers of American daily soaps and third-rate Hollywood movies we have internalized not only their words, but also the tone of voice in which the actors utter them and the accompanying body postures and gestures. In fact, even the reiteration of statements with only a slight variation in the wording is typical Hollywood-speak.

In his Documenta project titled The Mirror Maze with 12 Signs of Depression, Lum turned the mirror maze, with its known effects of losing one's sense of direction and feeling unreal, into a portrayal of states of depression. Short, simple sentences on the mirrors (e.g., "I cry for no reason," "I feel alone in the world") guided the emotions, while through the endless reflections of the mirrors one could experience one's own disintegration. The manipulation taking effect in Lum's new works, however, is aimed at something different. Repeating the sentences on the mirrors in inner monologues, you for a short time become the person going through the emotions mentioned above--anger, despair, excitement. You are taking on a role. With relatively simple means Lum illustrates how feelings are conveyed to and imposed on the individual consumers by the media.

Looking at Lum's mirrors in the age of the culture industry and globalization inevitably raises the question of authenticity. Yet the mirror, which in the history of art has typically served as an attribute to Wisdom as well as a reminder of transitoriness, is not meant here to encourage nostalgic reflections on the loss of individuality in a globalized mass culture. Rather, Lum invites us to a game, to a playing field of new questions. Are feelings less authentic, for instance, when expressed by well-worn phrases? Maybe all you have to do is recite the key sentences over and over again while looking in the mirrors, to feel like someone who really can't go on like this--or who really is looking good?

Lum has for quite a while dealt with questions of identity and individuality in a world of consumerism and over-simple messages. Among his earlier projects, the Photo / Text works of the late 1980s and early 1990s combined bold statements with portraits of "typical" North Americans. In the Shopkeeper Series, shop signs with their characteristic type and basic symbols became an embodiment of the American Dream, a dream that immigrants continue to hold up against the odds of complicated life stories and a harsh living reality. This dialectic structure is a red thread throughout Ken Lum's śuvre, a sort of ongoing competition between the possibilities of the imagination and the real world.

For more information on the exhibition and the gallery’s program please contact us at:

l.a.galerie-frankfurt@t-online.de or phone +49 69 28 86 87