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News / January 29, 2020

Ken Lum Wins $50,000 Gershon Iskowitz Prize

Lum also to have a related exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2021
Artist Ken Lum. Photo: Courtesy Misa Shin Gallery, Tokyo. Artist Ken Lum. Photo: Courtesy Misa Shin Gallery, Tokyo.
Artist Ken Lum. Photo: Courtesy Misa Shin Gallery, Tokyo. Artist Ken Lum. Photo: Courtesy Misa Shin Gallery, Tokyo.

Ken Lum is the winner of the 2019 Gershon Iskowitz Prize.

This award is presented annually to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to the visual arts in Canada. It includes a $50,000 cash prize and a solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario within two years. The prize is named for painter Gershon Iskowitz (1921–1988), who founded the prize privately in 1986 to support the development of artists in Canada.

According to a release, when notified that he was the unanimous choice of the jury for the 2019 prize, Ken Lum commented: “The circumstances of Gershon Iskowitz’s life make him an exemplar of humaneness and global citizenry. I am honoured to be considered worthy of a prize began by and named after him.”

Born in Vancouver, Ken Lum is currently chair of the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design in Philadelphia. His previous honours include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pew Fellowship, a Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award and the Order of Canada.

Lum is a founding editor and co-founder of Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, and his book Everything is Relevant: Writings on Art and Life, 1991–2018 was recently published by Concordia University Press. He also currently serves as chief curatorial advisor to Monument Lab: a public art and history collective.

Jurors for the 2019 Iskowitz Prize included Catherine Bédard, curator and deputy director of the Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris; Naomi Potter, director/curator, Esker Foundation, Calgary; Geoffrey James, artist, winner of the 2002 Gershon Iskowitz Prize and foundation trustee; and Stephan Jost, director and CEO of the Art Gallery of Ontario, and trustee of the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation.

Previous winners of the Gershon Iskowitz Prize include Valérie Blass, Sarah Anne Johnson and Geoffrey Farmer. Lum’s prize exhibition is due to take place at the AGO in 2021.