Artist. Artist agent. Independent curator. Writer. Troublemaker.
Columbia University alumnus. Chicago-born Chinese American daughter of immigrants from Hong Kong. Globetrotting polyglot. People connector. Culture cultivator. Kyriarchy smasher. Graphic T-shirt addict. Former precocious child. Current child at heart. Leo. INTJ. Nerd.
1st Prize Winner of the National Park Service & National Park Foundation's Centennial Project. Two-time recipient of the Individual Artists Program grant from the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, including for my ongoing-since-2008 large-scale interactive public art and mapping project, Dreams of a City. My site, Artists on the Lam, was named "Best Local Visual Arts Blog" in the Chicago Reader's Best of Chicago issue. My show, I CAN DO THAT, was named the audience choice for "Best Art Exhibit" in NewCity's Best of Chicago issue in 2012.
On this day in 2012 was the closing reception for I CAN DO THAT, the watershed interactive art show I created and independently curated! Here's a photo I've never shared before: A candid my mom took of me while I was getting interviewed by Gozamos 🎤 // I CAN DO THAT (c) Jenny Lam 2012
Happy Arbor Day! 🌲 Flashback Friday to a month ago: Joyful Trees (Arbores Laetae) installation by architectural group Diller Scofidio + Renfro at Oil Street Art Space, Hong Kong, featuring 16 Chinese Junipers, three of which are placed on rotating planter box turntables at a 10-degree tilt. // (c) Jenny Lam 2024
Happy Earth Day! Here are Haystack Rock and Butterflies, two photographs 22-year-old photographer Hayden Minor has in my zine, LAMINATOR Vol. 1. Based in Joliet, Illinois, Hayden enjoys capturing Earth's natural beauty through its landscapes and animals using his digital camera. // LAMINATOR (c) Jenny Lam 2024
Happy National Poetry Month! Chicago poet Jamiece Adams has two poems in my zine, LAMINATOR Vol. 1—“21st and Maple” and “In Defense of Melancholy”—that make my heart ache whenever I read them. Here's the full text of the former.
Jamiece Adams is a Black genderqueer writer. She was a Lambda Literary Fellow in 2019. Her work has been published in Rabbit: Nonfiction Poetry Journal, The Lambda Literary Anthology of Emerging LGBTQ+ Writers, Hypertext Magazine, and elsewhere. She was nominated for an Illinois Arts Council award in fiction for her piece “The Solitude of Sleep.”
Also, Jamiece is co-hosting a Threewalls salon called “In-Session | The Porch: Places of Belonging” at Soul Full Chicago on May 15. Congratulations, Jamiece!
Happy 12th anniversary to 2012's I CAN DO THAT, the rule-breaking interactive group show featuring over 40 artists from around the world that I created and independently curated based on how a lot of people go up to contemporary art and say, “Well, I can do that,” or “my kid could do that.” So at the show I had the artists’ original art supplies in front of each piece, as well as blank canvases and other surfaces, and challenged people to see if they could, indeed, “do that,” or if they felt like they could improve a piece, they were able to directly paint or make any mark on that original work of art. It was glorious fun, and was eventually named audience choice for “Best Art Exhibit” in the 20th anniversary edition of NewCity's Best of Chicago issue.
Some of my favorites from the VIP Preview and Opening Night of Expo Chicago on Thursday. The art fair is now open to the public!
1. Declassified CIA documents chronicling US interventions replacing left-wing governments with right-wing regimes, primarily in Latin America. Voluspa Jarpa, Desclasificados (Declassified), NOME.
2. Monica Ikegwu, Jessica and Jazz, Galerie Myrtis.
3. After viewing the above booth, I heard someone shout, "JENNY?!" and it was my friend Krystal Boney, pictured here with Manolo Valdés, Helene I - Gustav Klimt Judith, bogéna galerie. We hadn't seen each other in 5 years! And we ended up walking the entire fair together (even though she'd gotten there earlier and had seen most of it already) and it was so great. <3 Running into friends is always the best part about Expo!
4. Manyaku Mashilo, How About a New Way to Pray, Southern Guild.
5. This painter is always a favorite of mine. Antonio Santín, Alboroto, Marc Straus.
6. Thandiwe Muriu, Camo-Untitled, 193 Gallery.
7. Nir Hod, 100 Years Is Not Enough and Scratches of Butterfly, Michael Kohn Gallery.
8. Selfie by Krystal of us in front of the above. I'm not ducking down; Krystal was amused she could do this.
9. Whitfield Lovell, Wayfarer series, DC Moore Gallery.
10. Jacob Rochester, Residency Art Gallery.11. Mohau Modisakeng, Imvu Nomfula (The Lamb and the River), Martin Art Projects.
12. Stephen Eichhorn, Window to the (Passion Flower), Secrist | Beach.
13. Robert Pruitt, Monster and Lemon Tree, Vielmetter Los Angeles.
I went into my external hard drive and found my photos of Emme (my maternal cousin Phil's cute and clever little Yorkie) from when I first met her in 2014 so here's a crappy little collage I hastily put together haha. 10 years ago vs. a few weeks ago in Hong Kong! Happy National Pet Day! '14 photo of me by Phil on my iPhone 5s & 2024 photos of me by my mom on her point-and-shoot. ^^ // (c) Jenny Lam
Shot on my iPhone 5s in 2015, my photo One Step at a Time has been awarded an Honorable Mention in the 13th Annual Mobile Photography Awards in the Silhouettes category! This is my 3rd year in a row being selected by the MPA. Thank you and congrats to everyone!
(My photo: A candid of a stranger walking down the spiral staircase in the Morton Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago.)