Joan Kee


Joan Kee is an art historian specializing in modern and contemporary art. Her book, Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method, published by University of Minnesota Press in 2013, is credited with sparking global interest in Dansaekhwa, a major constellation of abstract paintings produced in South Korea from the 1960s. In 2014, she curated From All Sides: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method, a group show of representative Tansaekhwa artists that was widely acclaimed. She has been cited as Tansaekhwa's most prominent Anglophone scholar. Kee teaches at the University of Michigan where she is Associate Professor in the History of Art. Her latest book, , was published February 2019. The book includes discussion of the following artists, among others; Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Gordon Matta-Clark, Tehching Hsieh, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Sally Mann. Kee is a contributing editor to Artforum, advisory editor to the Oxford Art Journal, editor at large for the Brooklyn Rail, and also sits on the international advisory board of Art History. She has been cited in reference to artists like Zao Wou-ki, Gordon Matta-Clark, and to Park Seobo.

Academic career

Kee earned her PhD at New York University Institute of Fine Arts. Her supervisor was Shitao scholar Jonathan Hay. Research for her dissertation was supported by an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Kee also obtained a JD from Harvard Law School and a BA from Yale College where she graduated magna cum laude.

Selected publications