other artists

• Ana Mendieta
• Francis Bacon
• Hiroshi Sugimoto
• Alexander Calder
• Willem de Kooning
• Jean Dubuffet
• Alberto Giacometti
• Henri Matisse
• Henry Moore
• Gerhard Richter
• Auguste Rodin
• Ed Ruscha
• David Smith
• Ellsworth Kelly
• Man Ray
• John Baldessari
• Arshile Gorky

in depth: Nikki Lee

Nikki S. Lee was featured in the Hirshhorn’s 2001 group show, Open City: Street Photographs since 1950, and a number of her photographs have been added to the collection in recent years. She studied photography at New York University and continues to live and work in New York City, shooting primarily in color with an automatic camera.

Lee’s photographs combine the aesthetic of the photo-diary with a performative element reminiscent of the work of Cindy Sherman, but rather than creating fictional scenes where she plays the leading role, Lee inserts herself into real scenarios. Her photographs become an ambiguous documentation of the relationships that she establishes with particular social groups. She often stamps the images in each series with dates, emphasizeing the fact that the photographed event was a part of her own experience.

Lee’s photographs cannot be viewed simply as self-portraits, but must be considered as part of the tradition of photography as a means of social observation.