Talks
Exploring ‘Transnational’ as a curatorial method
Sook-Kyung Lee
Amid a global health crisis and increasing divisions across communities and nations, we are collectively facing new and urgent questions on what it means to think and act on a transnational, planetary level while also being firmly rooted and committed to the local.
In this talk, Dr. Sook-Kyung Lee (Senior Curator, International Art, Tate Modern) shares how the Tate’s Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational (HTRC:T) engenders curatorial questioning of the geopolitics of global art histories, as well the museum’s collections in a decolonial context.
Over the last two decades following the establishment of Tate Modern, Tate’s collection has grown in its cultural and geographic scope to present a more global art history to its audiences.
The HTRC:T was founded in 2019 as a hub for museum-based curatorial and art historical research, where the phenomenon of ‘transnational’ runs as a continuum to examine, review and reframe art histories and curatorial methods.
Dr Sook-Kyung Lee
Senior Curator, International Art at Tate Modern,
Dr Sook-Kyung Lee is Senior Curator, International Art at Tate Modern, working in exhibitions, collection displays and acquisitions. She has also been heading Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational since 2019, a major multi-year research initiative for curatorial innovation, overseeing its strategic vision and associated programming.
Lee was previously Exhibitions & Displays Curator at Tate Liverpool (2007-12) as well as the Curator of Tate’s Asia Pacific Acquisitions Committee (2007-2018). She also served as the Commissioner and Curator of the Korean Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, where she presented a site-specific new commission by Korean artistic duo Moon Kyungwon & Jeon Joonho.
Lee curated a number of major exhibitions at Tate, including Nam June Paik (2019-20, Tate Modern) and Doug Aitken: The Source (2012-13, Tate Liverpool as part of Liverpool Biennial). She has also curated several collection-based exhibitions and displays at Tate Modern, such as A Year in Art: Australia 1992 (2021-22), CAMP (2019-21), and Xiao Lu and Niki de Saint Phalle (2018-19).
