INTERVIEW Artist Lee Kang-seung's mission to unearth forgotten queer narratives
Installation view of Lee Kang-seung's show, "Who Will Care for Our Caretakers," presented as part of the group exhibition, "Korea Artist Prize 2023," at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) in central Seoul / Courtesy of MMCA
Within his dreamlike world of gold-threaded embroidery, graphite drawings and collaborative performances, artist Lee Kang-seung imagines a conversation across time and space, connecting historical queer figures whose lives never directly intertwined.
In his latest eight-minute-long collaborative video, “Lazarus,” for instance, he envisages a dialogue between pioneering Singaporean-born ballet choreographer Goh Choo San (1948-87) and Brazilian conceptual artist Jose Leonilson (1957-93), both of whose lives were lost to the AIDS epidemic a generation ago.
At the helm of Lee's vision, the two dancers perform a creatively restaged rendition of Goh’s 1986 neo-classical ballet, “Unknown Territory,” while united by a single costume that draws inspiration from Leonilson’s final creation — a sculptural installation composed of two men’s dress shirts sewn together.
The performers’ movements, naturally restricted by the costume’s design, simultaneously embody the states of intimacy, suffering and belonging that all remain significant parts of queer communities’ lived experiences.
A live cactus, part of "Archive in Dirt" (2019-present), had been propagated from a succulent that once belonged to Harvey Milk (1930-78), California’s first openly gay elected official. Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol
For another project, Lee crafted a ceramic pot and saucer to house a live cactus. The plant in question was propagated from a succulent that once belonged to Harvey Milk (1930-78), California’s first openly gay elected official who was assassinated after serving less than a year in office.
To create its pot, the artist harvested soil from sites around the world that have historical resonances for the LGBTQ+ community — British filmmaker and gay rights activist Derek Jarman’s (1942-94) cottage garden in Kent, England, as well as Tapgol and Namsan Parks in Seoul, which long served as gay cruising spots in Korea.
Through such artistic interventions, Lee connects the overlooked legacies left behind by geographically distant figures of modern LGBTQ+ history and AIDS activism. And by doing so, he creates a new kind of queer-centric genealogy that transcends national borders and generations.
This year, the Seoul-born, Los Angeles-based artist has been named one of the four finalists for the Korea Artist Prize, a major contemporary art award co-organized by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) and SBS Foundation.
Installation view of "Who Will Care for Our Caretakers" at the MMCA / Courtesy of MMCA
For Lee, unearthing and preserving the untold histories of queer communities requires what he calls “intergenerational care.”
Seoul-born, Los Angeles-based artist Lee Kang-seung / Courtesy of the artist
“Much like the potted ‘Harvey’ cactus, these memories can only be kept alive and available for future generations when they are collectively revisited and nurtured,” he shared in a recent interview with The Korea Times at the MMCA in central Seoul, where the "Korea Artist Prize 2023” exhibit is currently on display.
“My projects are rooted in extensive research on individuals who are no longer with us. If it weren’t for the dedicated efforts of their families, friends and loved ones who have preserved their legacies all this time through community and archival care, I would never have been able to learn about their stories.”
Through his visual art, Lee attempts to take on this role of a “cultural caretaker” of faded history — a mission that has been highlighted in his section of the group show, which he has aptly titled “Who Will Care for Our Caretakers.”
The title comes from “Funeral Diva” (2020), part memoir and part poetry penned by Black lesbian poet and activist Pamela Sneed. In the book, she recalls hearing this phrase uttered three decades ago at the peak of the AIDS crisis in New York City, as a way to honor the many, often overlooked, women who provided care for their dying male friends.
Who will continue to remember and speak about these lost chapters in queer history? It was this question that profoundly resonated with Lee.
For the exhibition, the artist transcribed the sentence, “Who Will Care for Our Caretakers,” in an American Sign Language (ASL) font — the usage of which was inspired by the late gay Chinese American painter Martin Wong (1946-99). The text appears both in a site-specific mural and as hand-stitched embroidery.
Lee Kang-seung's "Untitled (CARE)" (2023) / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol
Lee’s interest in excavating overlooked LGBTQ+ narratives to construct an alternative historical lineage first sprouted during his teenage years in the 1980s and 1990s in Korea — a country long characterized by a notable absence of queer representation in mainstream media.
That desire became more layered when he left Korea in his early adulthood and realized the fraught, marginalized identity of queer Asians within the Euro-American-centric discourse.
That is why “operating on a transnational level as an artist remains crucial” for him, he pointed out, so that he can find ways to retrieve forgotten memories from diverse parts of the world and weave them together in a fresh cultural dialogue.
Such methodology is what led him to imagine a connection between English filmmaker Jarman and Korean writer Oh Joon-soo (1964-98) in his 2018 project, “Garden.”
Although the two never came into contact during their lifetimes, both were important forces of gay rights activism in their respective countries before succumbing to AIDS-related complications in the 1990s.
Lee felt that the story of Jarman, whose legacy has been continually revisited and studied, especially in the English-speaking world, could serve as a gateway to introduce the life of much lesser-known Oh.
“Oh was one of the first Korean gay men to publicly disclose that he was HIV-positive in 1993, dedicating the rest of his life to AIDs activism and writing,” he explained.
The artist initially came across Oh’s posthumously published essay collection around 2000, but it wasn’t until well over a decade later, in 2016, that he began in-depth research on the life of the late activist-writer. This process involved working with the Korea Queer Archive, where records of the country’s LGBTQ+ community have been compiled since 2009, as well as interviewing Oh’s friends and colleagues from the local gay rights group, “Chingusai.”
By juxtaposing Oh’s memorabilia treasured by his loved ones — photos, scrapbooks, letters and a ring – with pebbles and dried flowers from Jarman’s English cottage garden, Lee creates threads between the two figures’ stories of resistance against social stigma and discrimination. It becomes a new, enduring way of remembrance.
Lee Kang-seung's "Who Will Care for Our Caretakers" (2022) / Courtesy of the artist, MMCA
One striking characteristic of Lee’s memorial homage is its highly labor-intensive nature.
In addition to collaborative performances and installations of found objects that are born from years of archival research, the artist invests extensive hours in reproducing visual images from the forgotten past via photorealistic graphite drawings and hand-stitched gold-threaded embroidery.
“I view the artist’s labor itself as a tangible and direct means of ‘caring for’ the past, because it enables me to reenact and embody the neglected history, quite literally,” he said.
And he often incorporates materials that have existed on this planet for much longer than any living humans today — antique 24-karat gold thread produced in the 1910s in Kyoto, pebbles, plants and soil. To him, these entities have silently borne witness to the centuries-long stories of loss, trauma and resistance of his subjects that were expunged from the mainstream historical narrative.
These materials are then artfully placed on goatskin parchments or “sambe," a woven hemp textile traditionally used in Korean funerary rituals, both of which are associated with the idea of death.
The work as a whole thus becomes a site of both mourning and remembrance, reminding the viewers of what has been lost in mainstream history and memorializing its legacy for future generations.
“These pieces seem delicate and fragile at first, but with the right care and attention, they can last for a very long time — just like our collective memory,” the artist noted.
Lee Kang-seung's "Untitled (Hold Tight Gently, Choo San and Robert)" (2023) / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol
Over the past five years in Korea, Lee’s works have been featured at prominent shows such as the 13th Gwangju Biennale and the MMCA’s 2020 group exhibition, “Looking for Another Family,” along with several showcases in private galleries. And this year, he stands as one of the finalists for the Korea Artist Prize.
In his eyes, the inclusion of his memorial homages honoring LGBTQ+ history in the country’s public art domain signifies a gradual transformation in Korean society.
“I admit that the pace of this change may sometimes feel too slow, and a visible transformation may not be as immediate as we desire. It may not even happen in our lifetime. But I have faith that the winds of change will persist even after we are no longer here,” he said.
By continuing to unearth neglected chapters of the past and weaving these memories together to create new, unexpected dialogues, Lee hopes to highlight that history is not something that is linear and immutable — but rather ever-shifting and polyphonic.
“My work is part of a larger effort to rewrite queer and minority history, and more broadly, history as a whole for future generations.”
The exhibition, “Korea Artist Prize 2023,” runs through March 31 next year at the MMCA.
Installation view of "Who Will Care for Our Caretakers" at the MMCA / Courtesy of MMCA