Nikki Lee

The Phillips Collection is hosting a series called Conversations with Artists, which focuses on contemporary photographers. Nikki Lee will be the next featured artist.

From skateboarders to senior citizens, photographer Nikki S. Lee studies various subcultures and ethnic groups, then transforms into a member of each group by adopting its style of dress, gesture, and posture. Snapshots of Lee’s interactions with these groups – while in the appropriate guise – create a fascinating sociological study.

Lee’s projects propose questions regarding identity and social behavior. Do we choose our social groups consciously? How are we identified by other people? Is it possible for us to move between cultures? Lee believes that “essentially life itself is a performance. When we change our clothes to alter our appearance, the real act is the transformation of our way of expression—the outward expression of our psyche.”

I am amazed at the way Nikki Lee assimilates herself so fully that her Korean identity becomes secondary to her role as a skater or rural white American housewife or urban Hispanic. In some images, you don't even realize she is Asian at all! I suddenly realize my whole life has been performance art!

Phillips Collection

February 28

5:30 PM

www.phillipscollection.org