Ken Lum: TO SAY OR NOT TO SAY

Royale Projects is pleased to announce To Say or Not to Say, a solo exhibition of works by Ken Lum, opening Saturday, March 29.

Through three interconnected bodies of work rooted in language, To Say or Not to Say explores Lum’s engagement with commercial signage as a reflection of our individual worldviews— shaped by the pressures of social, political, and economic forces. These series, though created over two decades ago, feel as current as ever, capturing the tension between belonging and exclusion at a time when their meaning is being contested on a national scale.

As Lum stated in his 2009 article To Say or Not to Say—from which the exhibition title was taken — “Art could allow me to say things that I could not otherwise. These things related to feelings that were and continue to be very difficult to express in terms of language. Art seemed capable of expressing the deepest wounds of a person.” 

Lum’s Language Paintings, from 1987, were inspired by billboards he encountered in Cologne, Germany—advertisements written in an indecipherable script. They evoke the experience of foreignness while experimenting with the globalized visual codes of consumer culture.

From 2001, Lum’s Shopkeepers Signs transform conventional marquee signage into personal declarations of ambition, resilience, and struggle. The fictional yet eerily plausible storefront sign, Sue’s Motel, reflects the intersection between public and private speech, exposing intimate details of the owners. 

Highlighting the dynamics of community formation and shifting economic landscapes, the Strip-Mall series created shortly after the Shopkeepers Signs, urges us to look beyond the generic facades of small businesses to see the human stories behind them. Norgate Shopping Center reveals a place of both refuge and a battleground where mom-and-pop shops serve as vital support networks but also struggle against displacement.  

Through these works, Lumrevealshow words— direct, ambiguous, or even nonsensical—shape perception and humanity. The exhibition, To Say or Not to Say, demonstrates that there is, and always has been, power in both what is said and left unsaid.