Joan_Kee
Joan Kee
American art historian
Joan Kee is an American art historian specializing in modern and contemporary art. Her first book, Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method, published by University of Minnesota Press in 2013, is credited[1][2] with sparking global interest[3] in Dansaekhwa, a major constellation of abstract paintings produced in South Korea from the 1960s. In 2014, she curated From All Sides: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method,[4] a group show of representative Tansaekhwa artists that was widely acclaimed.[5] She has been cited as Tansaekhwa's most prominent Anglophone scholar.[6] Kee teaches at the University of Michigan where she is Professor in the History of Art.[7]
Kee's latest book – The Geometries of Afro Asia: Art beyond Solidarity, published April 2023 – presents a framework for understanding the rich and surprisingly understudied relationship between Black and Asian artists and the worlds they initiate through their work. Her previous book, Models of Integrity Art and Law in Post-Sixties America, includes discussion of the following artists, among others; Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Gordon Matta-Clark, Tehching Hsieh, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Sally Mann.[8] Kee is a contributing editor to Artforum,[9] advisory editor to the Oxford Art Journal,[10] editor at large for the Brooklyn Rail,[11] and also sits on the international advisory board of Art History.[12] She has been cited in reference to artists like Zao Wou-ki, Gordon Matta-Clark, and to Park Seobo.[13][14][15]