BAMPFA is excited to present Joan Kee as the museum’s 2026 Lijin Lecturer. The endowed Lijin Collection Distinguished Lecture series presents leading artists and scholars on topics that relate to and cast new light upon East Asian art. Dr. Kee writes:

“What if art history reframed itself around global majorities so that more of the world could be seen rather than less? To speak of a global majority is to acknowledge that most of the world has been sidelined by systems that mistake their own limitations for universal relevance. But what happens when we insist on abundance in lieu of artificial scarcity? More than a question of inclusion, it is a challenge to embark on different approaches to navigation: instead of a map that abstracts its picture of the world from a single stationary point, terms like ‘Afro Asia’ demand moving between artworks as a navigator moves between islands, constantly recalibrating position in response to changing currents rather than imposing fixed taxonomies from above. Artists like William H. Johnson, Re-hyun Park, and Uzo Egonu emphasize how artistic communities constitute their own forms of governance.”

Joan Kee is Judy and Michael Steinhardt Director and Professor at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts and Affiliated Faculty at NYU School of Law. She focuses on how modern and contemporary artworks intersect with diverse phenomena, from legal jurisdiction to theories of digital communication. Kee’s books include Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method (2013), which brought international attention to postwar Korean abstraction; Models of Integrity: Art and Law in Post-Sixties America (2019); and The Geometries of Afro Asia: Art Beyond Solidarity (2023), which won the 2024 Robert Motherwell Book Award.