Nikki S. Lee

Nikki S.Lee, The Hispanic Project (19), 1998

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Nikki S. Lee (b. Kye-Chang, Korea) doesn’t make a drama out of an identity crisis – she infiltrates and impersonates the many subcultures of contemporary society in order to challenge notions of national and cultural identity.

Lee moved to New York in 1994 and developed a new identity, changing her name from Lee Seung-Hee to Nikki S. Lee. With this new persona Lee became her artistic practice, simultaneously assuming the role of both photographer and subject.

Exploiting her extraordinary aptitude for understanding and adapting to different cultural milieus, she constructs photographic essays or ‘projects’ that take as their subject identifiable social groups, and which investigate and adopt the characteristics that make up their collective identities – appearance, behaviour and lifestyle. Her background has undoubtedly influenced her approach – ‘Kids in Korea grow up watching Hollywood movies, listening to foreign pop songs and eating McDonald’s hamburgers,’ she says, ‘I never feel uncomfortable or embarrassed when in an exotic atmosphere since I feel like I grew up in a foreign culture myself.’

Immersing herself in a particular community for weeks or even months, Nikki S. Lee undertakes not only a physical transformation – painstakingly employing clothing, make-up, hair (even losing or gaining weight if required) – but also adapts her behaviour, attitude and environment to metamorphose into a character of another age, race, gender or class. Reinventing herself anew for each project, she has been a punk, a yuppie, an exotic dancer, a school-girl, a skateboarder, a lesbian, an Hispanic teenager, a senior citizen – this last guise so convincing that her fellow old ladies refused to believe that she was an artist, dismissing her story as a delusion due to her senility.

The ensuing photographs are shot spontaneously by friends or bystanders at Lee’s request, using her very simple ‘point and shoot’ camera. They have the immediacy of the snapshot and its implication of veracity, the aura of the documentary. Yet this air of spontaneity is a conceit, engineered to suspend the familiar and hold it up for examination.

Self-portraiture is at the core of the projects, yet Lee’s brand of ‘self-portraiture’ is not conducted as an investigation of the private self, but as an examination of the public, social self. The emphasis is on appearance and artifice, suggesting that surface tells us more than we would like to think. First impressions not only count – oftentimes they are the most important means of identifying with other people. Lee uses stereotypes not to examine them per se, but, through slipping with ease between one social group and another with a chameleon-like quality, she questions their validity. Humanity enters the picture with an exuberant rush – a non-judgmental acknowledgement of difference and similarity, concentrating on the interpersonal relationships that define identity, community and belonging, refusing simplistic ideological agendas.

Nikki S. Lee at Liverpool Biennial 2002

The Punk Project (6), 1997
Photograph
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

The Young Japanese Project (East Village) (6), 1997
Photograph
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

The Hispanic Project (19), 1998
Photograph
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

The Ohio Project (7), 1999
Photograph
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

The Seniors Project (12), 1999
Photograph
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

The Seniors Project (14), 1999
Photograph
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

The Yuppie Project (15), 1999
Photograph
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

The Exotic Dancers Project (4), 2000
Photograph
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

The Skateboarders Project (7), 2000
Photograph
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

The Skateboarders Project (15), 2000
Photograph
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

The Skateboarders Project (36), 2000
Photograph
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

The Hip Hop Project (29), 2001
Photograph
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

The Hip Hop Project (32), 2001
Photograph
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

The Hip Hop Project (36), 2001
Photograph
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool