Nikki S. Lee		This interview with Nikki S. Lee was conducted by Gilbert Vacario, the curator of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston in 2001. G.V.: Nikki, give me some background. Where were you born and what made you decide to become an artist? N.S.L.: I was raised in a really small town in Korea. There wasn't much going on, but I guess I had an artistic temperament in the classic sense: I had a desire to make something unique. But I didn't want to be an artist—I was a realistic child. In Korea at that time, the position of women artists was terrible and being an artist didn't seem very cool. My idea of what an artist is came from what I saw in movies like Amadeus. To me, that was an artist's life. When I listened to those songs or saw those movies, I felt sentimental and sympathetic—empathetic. I identified with them. But it seemed all much too gloomy and melancholy and I didn't want to live like that. I just had a vague taste for it, and yet I was afraid to follow that desire. So I had to figure out another way to make something great. When I went to university, I decided I wanted to be an actress and to be in film. But I realized I'm not pretty enough to be an actress in Korea. I looked in the mirror, looked at my face and said, "Okay, I give up, but maybe I can make a movie." Unfortunately, my parents didn't want me to go to film school. Instead, I went to photo school, thinking it would be a side door to film. My dad had actually graduated from photography school and was a sort of photographer, even though he's a businessman. I got a Bachelor of Photography in Korea. Then I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York for commercial photography and later, to the New York University Photo Department. I hated all the technical stuff at the beginning. I almost dropped out, but luckily, in my second year of school, I started taking commercial and fashion classes, and I got interested in the conceptual stuff. Before that, it had been all documentary—going out into the street and taking photos and I hated it. I don't like bothering people. So I thought maybe I'd be a fashion photographer. I could have a good car, nice clothes—all the things you think of at the beginning of your twenties—a cool life! Altogether, I've spent about nine or ten years learning photography. And I don't take pictures anymore! I love not having to focus on the technical aspects of things. I don't like pressing the button or focusing on lighting, but I like photography and looking at pictures. I like the context of photography—I can read it clearly. I love Roland Barthes and all and I'm actually good at the technical aspects of photography, but after ten years, I'm glad I don't have to do it anymore. G.V.: So at what point did you become re-engaged with art and the art world? N.S.L.: While at NYU, I met this guy who started taking me to galleries and introduced me to different books, and it really affected me. Personal relationships are everything! People ask me who my influences are—Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman—but for me, it's the people around me. My boyfriends, sisters, or friends I talk to. The real people around me affect my work, not other artists. I'd seen Cindy Sherman's work at school, but I didn't really pay attention at that time. I was just interested in commercial and fashion photography. I liked the film stills, but I was more into the people getting published in Vogue. G.V.: I'm curious if it's true that you started out in the fashion world working for David LaChapelle? A lot of people tend to dismiss fashion as not very serious, when in fact, there is this connection between art and fashion that's been there for many, many years. Somehow it's apparent in your work, but not overt. N.S.L.: Well, I did start out as an intern for LaChapelle. I was a photo assistant, carrying lighting and helping set up, loading film, picking up film. I was working with a big fashion photographer; everything should be great. But suddenly I wanted to follow these old desires to make something of my own. I figured I'd try doing my own work and if it didn't work out, I'd just come back. Why not? So I started to cheat a little bit on my old life and it made me happier. And then it started to take over. The fashion started to get less important and eventually I quit. I started to do what I wanted. As for the fashion world, the one thing I respect is its shallowness; it's so deep—it's so serious! It can be hard to get that kind of shallowness because its depth and seriousness. It's very tricky! G.V.: That's so Warholian. I think Andy Warhol said, "I'm a deeply superficial person." But your work does have a relationship to Pop Art, which is another level of your work that hasn't been touched on much, and also to the notion of celebrity. Even if it isn't something you set out to achieve in these photographs, your personality—the Nikki S. Lee personality—inevitably comes through, even though in your work you seek to integrate yourself into these different situations and groups. And when you look at a large body of your work, the viewer begins to develop a relationship with Nikki Lee. Again, it's similar to watching a movie star. You begin to identify with that person over time and repetition. The question of identity invariably comes up in any attempt to describe your work. It seems like artists who are not Western or white are immediately put into that corner—it seems like a particular American thing to do. Were you aware of this as you embarked on your projects? N.S.L.: People are always bringing up the question of identity. I don't care if people call me a chameleon—it's a cliché and people are too lazy to invent new words, but I forgive them. Changing myself is a part of my identity. That's never changed. I'm just playing with forms of changing. My work is really simple, actually. I wanted to make evidence, as John Berger calls it. I always feel like I have a lot of different characters inside and I was curious to understand these things. I wanted to see some sort of evidence that I could be all those different things. Personally, I like work that has a lot of layers. All the critics want to pick up on something unique. First they bring up the academic issues of post-colonialism or Asian cultural studies. I understand that's the first level, so I just let it be. If I find someone who finds the second level, I'm more interested in reacting to them. People analyze art in all sorts of ways but I don't think artists always set out to make "culture" with their work. G.V.: I remember when we first met you told me about your interest in combining Eastern philosophy with Western aesthetics. How would you characterize this? N.S.L.: One of my first interests was in how people think about the body and the differences between Eastern and Western medicine and the cultural effects. In the West, people are always getting surgery. If you're sick inside, say, your liver, you do surgery on the liver. But in the East, they do acupuncture or take herbs. If you have a liver problem, you address the other parts of the body too. It's all connected. The liver does not just exist by itself. You address the whole system—not just isolated things. In the West, you try to fix one thing—like a Band-Aid. This concept of the body, when you think about it, makes a huge difference between cultures. And this thing about identity in the West is all about the individual—about "yourself." G.V.: So what you're saying is that one's self is always understood in relation to that which surrounds you? N.S.L.: That's the underlying concept: other people make me a certain kind of person. It's about inner relationships and how those really address the idea of identity. People are interested in how I can alter my attitude or appearance from one project to the other. Each one brings out those certain characteristics. When I show the work, I prefer putting a lot of photographs together. If I show just one project or one photograph, people probably don't get what I'm doing. You can't have one without the others—they're all connected. The Punk Project has to be with The Yuppie Project, The Lesbian Project, and other projects—that's what makes The Punk Project really look Punk. The projects support and define one another. I don't necessarily see a sequence in my work, and my images don't have an order, but people can make up their own story when they see my work. G.V.: So it's very much like film stills rather than individual "perfect moments." But it's definitely meant to be read in a conceptual way, right? N.S.L.: It's like [Sergei] Eisenstein's principle of montage editing, or even like the Chinese system of writing: one character can change the meaning of the next character. Chinese characters operate as signs. But the beautiful thing is that they have different meanings, depending on how they're put together. For example, take the film title "Happy Together." It's four words in the Chinese title. The first word means "spring"; the second word, "light." So it becomes "light of spring." Then the third word means "killed"; and the last word, "snow." There are two layers. Translated literally, it means "the light of spring," or "spring light [sunshine] killed snow [melted snow]." But it's a metaphor. It literally means "hope," or "things are going to be okay." G.V.: Which is something that you don't always expect in the English language. But even so, in Western language systems, there are still visual philosophies or semiotics of how things are read. It all goes back to the contextual aspects of language. N.S.L.: Right. Imagine, for example, that you want to describe the moon in the sky: you'd better explain the clouds and you have to explain the stars. You describe something by what it is not or by what is around it. It's a metaphoric description of what the Moon is. In my work, I take pictures with a group and with other people of the group. So I describe like-people and their cultures, and then it goes back to my identity. I describe myself. Or if people ask you to explain what "Coca-Cola" is; it's hard to explain Coca-Cola. But if a person asks you, "Can you describe the difference between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola?" then you can explain that Coca-Cola is sweeter than Pepsi-Cola. Those things explain Coca-Cola by describing how it is different from Pepsi-Cola. So all those concepts are connected and I am very interested in those connections. G.V.: So how do the people in your photographs respond to what you are doing? N.S.L.: I found people to be natural in front of the camera—I mean, whatever natural is! You go to a bar with your friends and take a snapshot. You still pose, but it's you and your friends. I have a really small snapshot camera. People are familiar with it. They don't get nervous. I don't look like a professional photographer! And I'm really petite—people don't think I'm going to punch them and kill them. I just go hang out in the neighborhood in Brooklyn or Spanish Harlem. For the most part, they embrace me. I'll explain what I'm doing, but I'm not sure everyone understands. Sometimes people laugh. Sometimes they just think—oh, a student. Especially when I was doing it as homework. It was very casual. G.V.: Were there situations in which a deeper relationship developed—do you keep in touch with any of these people or do you keep a psychological distance between you and the people in the photographs? N.S.L.: It can be hard to maintain friendships afterward—for example, I did The Swingers Project after Punk, and people could really see a difference. But also, my own personality has something to do with that. I'm not the type of person who loves to just "hang out." G.V.: A lot of people have been provoked by your work, or questioned the validity of it. You know, "Okay, so she's going into these different communities. That's great, but I want it to go deeper." N.S.L.: People do come up to me, asking, "Why don't you go deeper," as you said. But it's not about Nan Goldin's work, you know, going from bathroom to bedroom. Go to your house and look at your snapshot album. You don't have pictures of sex scenes. Most people only have snapshots when they go traveling. They don't' really take a look at the details. You don't usually take pictures of yourself when you are crying, right? Look at Richard Billingham's work or Wolfgang Tillman's. But actually they make those things up. G.V.: It's all constructed and very conscious. N.S.L.: Right, they're constructed snapshots. Yet people actually expect to find that quality in my work, somehow. That's what people's idea of going deep is. What does it mean to go deeper? Taking pictures when you're more emotional or sorrowful, or having sex? I just want to have really boring snapshots—people just standing in front of a camera taking pictures with a smile. If people think it's borrowing, that's fine. But somehow it is emotional, because I do have an attachment with those people, although I never force it. I don't usually get really close to anyone's personal issues, but I don't consciously maintain a distance. I just open up to people, and it they come, I accept it. I don't force anyone to be close to me. G.V.: It's not like those websites where people set up cameras in their rooms, all day and all night, pushing that idea of a diary of the artist as art. N.S.L.: No, I don't do that. G.V.: I'm very interested in the concept of the Banal. N.S.L.: If people think it's boring, that's fine. I adopted the boring quality of snapshots, which is interesting in my work. But there's definitely a moment behind each image. I had a party with the punks at my house, and I have very different snapshots taken at my house. But I don't use them, because somehow they're too personal. People think deeper means better. But it can ruin my projects and it would be a totally different story. It would seem more like a fantasy, somehow, and romantic. G.V.: In Hollywood one of the most commercially successful and often repeated devices in film is the fish-out-of-water formula, where there is always a central character that comes out of nowhere, who is different from everybody else or who sees things differently from everyone else, yet manages to make a mark on the rest of the characters. I see that as an important narrative component of your work. Does this sound far-fetched? N.S.L.: My work has been compared to a Hollywood movie, which is very American. But there are certain things about my work that are not American at all. I don't know much about the Hollywood system, but it does make some sense to compare it with Asian directors making films with Hollywood-style s tores. I watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the thing that interested me most is how Ang Lee presented Kung Fu: it is very pleasurable, mixing fantasy with reality, and exoticism. That's what most people appreciate in that movie. The familiar formula makes people comfortable with new things. So he made a movie with martial arts within the Hollywood system. That's what made it successful: he showed Chinese stuff the way American people wanted to see it. He did it in the Matrix way, even though Matrix originally took scenes from martial arts movies. He found the points of intersection. I look for those kinds of similarities too. I've adopted really Western images into my work—take The Ohio Project. But in all, my real concept in very Oriental. G.V.: I definitely think this is an important recent paradigm shift: Chinese directors in Hollywood are not only adopting a Western medium, but are actually changing it. But I guess the Woody Allen movie Zelig was in the back of my mind as well. Now with The Schoolgirls Project, though, it's no longer about sticking out like a sore thumb. Have you thought about how this has changed the totality of your project? N.S.L.: I came to the U.S. in 1994 and I was raised in Korea. But it's strange: I can put myself into all these different cultures here and fold them into myself. Maybe it's a special ability. I think I can combine Eastern and Western things together. But you know, within the Hispanic community, I felt comfortable too. That's the curiosity of my life. Why do I feel familiar with swing music and 1920's-era culture? Why do I feel comfortable in a Mid-western community? When I did The Schoolgirls Project in Korea, it didn't seem any different from the other projects. I didn't go to a uniformed girls' high school in my youth—I went to a co-ed school. I never wore a uniform in my life. Still, my own high-school experience was very influential on my future life. Plus, this generation is really different. Even so, they still do the same things I did: studying, going out, eating, and shopping. The main thing is that for the fist time it was easy to work using my own language, but actually, it was not as easy as I thought. Even though I was speaking my own language and it was my own culture, I had to explain more because Korean people don't expose themselves to the camera very readily. Not like here, you know, people here are like, "Okay, everyone, snapshot!" And even though I explained that I'm an artist, people asked, "Why?" Or they don't understand what an "artist" is. If I explain what I'm doing here, people act interested. They don't ask what a thirty-year-old is doing back in high school! G.V.: I see The Schoolgirls Project as a more internal attempt at exploring the concept of "self," perhaps within the guise of familiarity and cultural homogeneity. Do you think people expect a more exotic view of Korea from you? N.S.L.: When I look at work that emphasizes something for its exotic value, I'm not interested. I don't like exoticism. Actually, I don't even know what "exotic" is anymore! Here people go to a Japanese restaurant and eat sushi with chopsticks and it's exotic. In Korea, TGI Friday's is exotic! Maybe people find my work exotic because they look at the projects, and wonder, "Wow, a trailer park in Ohio with an Asian girl. How did she get there?" But I don't want to get into the exoticism of ethnicity because that's just a very first layer of exoticism. I'm very careful with that. That's why I didn't do an Amish Project or Cowboy Project in Ohio. That's cute, but it's not really what it's all about. It's not like that hotel in San Francisco, where you have all different theme rooms, the Casablanca room, paradise room, or Disney. I'm not saying there's something wrong with that, and there's nothing wrong with entertaining, but I'm not an entertainer. When I went to Houston to see the Menil Collection, I wondered, "Why did someone collect all these African masks?" When people collect, you know, they want something for its exoticism. They collect exotic scarves or someone's head-curiosities. People think I'm doing this because, "Oh, she must have a real curiosity about different cultures," and actually I don't. Maybe it's because I grew up with American culture in Korea: I ate at McDonald's, I roller-skated and watched Hollywood movies, I've watched Wonder Woman and Starsky and Hutch. I was really sad when Rock Hudson died of AIDS. I never actually had to think about American culture. It would be the same thing if I was raised in Paris and then came here and did this work. It's more about having a global personality. So sometimes I find exotic things in my own culture, and sometimes I can't find anything exotic about elements of different cultures. The very ordinary becomes exotic out of context. It's hard to find anything left that is exotic right now, for me. If I see work that moves me, it's probably exotic in the sense that I find something different about it-it has originality. G.V.: One of the things that interests me in looking at the various projects is the degree to which you appear to be a passive or active participant. I mean this in the physical sense. For instance, in The Yuppie Project you seem to be posing, for the most part, holding a Tiffany's shopping bag or a micro-brewed beer. Whereas, to use an extreme example, you're hanging out with skateboarders in San Francisco or dancing in a strip club in Hartford. Do you see this active physical participation as a formal progression, or merely as something that enables you to fully realize or authenticate your interaction within a specific social context? N.S.L.: If that's the case, then The Swingers Project would be the most successful and The Seniors, the least-just sitting in the park! But actually sitting in the park takes a lot of energy! No, while I do learn things from my projects—I learned how to skateboard, for example—I don't usually go into it with the concept "I must learn something from my project." If I feel that way, it becomes boring. I love dancing—swing, tango—but I'm not really thinking about the intention of different activities I do for each project. I just do it. It took me about a month to learn how to skateboard, practicing about two times a week. Then I just show up: I have the look down, I can do a little "wham." There are two kinds of skateboarders: those who just skate in the street and do a lot of tricky stuff—they don't care if they break their necks or not—and others who treat it as a sport, doing whams and wearing helmets. I'm more of the second type, skateboard as sport. G.V.: How much research do you do with regard to clothing and make-up before you begin each project? N.S.L.: I don't do that much. I think I have good instincts when it comes to different lifestyles. I just go to the shops that those people go to and check them out. I don't go on the Internet or anything. And I have a good fashion sense. Sometimes if people want to copy a style, they buy the most unusual things from the shops. They don't buy the average things. I never want to pop out. I want to be eighty percent of any person from whichever group. There is that obvious connection between culture and capitalism, you know, that all you have to do to fit in is to go shopping at the right places. I shop at cheap places; I go to a lot of thrift shops, like the Salvation Army; or I'll go shopping wherever people go. Like, if there's a store that Hispanic people normally go to, I go there. It's just part of the process. And I love shopping. You need an eye for it. When you go to a thrift store, you have to find things that other people are wearing. So you have to know about their culture. The funny thing is, I shopped for The Ohio Project in the East Village; half of it from the thrift stores here. And when I went to Ohio, you know, it matched, and it worked. You have to start with some knowledge of what you want to get, otherwise it isn't really going to work. G.V.: I'd be curious to see what a Nikki S. Lee film would look like. N.S.L.: If there's a chance, sure, I'd love to make a film. I'm interested in making a simple story about relationships, but I don't have a vision or specific goal. You grab life, but what's the use? You can die tomorrow. G.V.: So what have you learned about yourself during these projects? N.S.L.: I don't know exactly who I am, but I know I don't want to go out and "find" myself. I'm too lazy for that. I believe that you never know with life. I'm not in a hurry.
			Projects by Nikki S. Lee. Hatje Cantz Publishers, Germany. Distributed in U.S.A. by Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., New York, NY. Interview © 2001 Gilbert Vicario and Nikki S. Lee.

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