Arthur Kwon Lee – Painting and the Pursuit of Truth

I knew Arthur Kwon Lee was a celebrated painter in New York City, so I wasn’t sure what to expect when I met him at the 21 Convention earlier this year. I went to art school for a few years in New York. I’ve spent time touring the Soho galleries — but that was decades ago, in a very different New York. 

My first impression upon meeting him was that he is…kind of a “bro.” And I mean that in the best possible way. Bros are my people. He ended up hitting the gym with Tanner Guzy, Alexander Cortes, and me for a shoulder day. Arthur doesn’t have the air of pretension and stuffiness about him that some might expect. 

Still, Arthur has shown his work in the NYC scene, and he has even won a number of awards. He’s gone to the shows, openings, and parties and had drinks and dinners with the movers and shakers in America’s cultural metropolis. 

But being a darling of that art world ended for him when he started to feel confined by the expectation to agree with and regurgitate the far-left political and social narratives that the gallery owners and dealers dictate and demand of artists. He said he was frustrated with the kind of “social camouflage” he had to develop to navigate the scene. When we talked about it later for this interview over a video call, he described what he called one big “bridge-burning moment.” 

He was out having drinks with a female gallery owner who was promoting a Black Lives Matter exhibition, and to include the “Stop Asian Hate” movement, she wanted to feature his work because he is an Asian man. She expected him to be excited to be included as a token Asian, but Arthur is interested in ideas, not identity politics. He explained that he told her he thought it was strange that blacks attacking Asians was being called “white supremacy.” Arthur then went on to describe Black Lives Matter as a kind of “modern blackface” where white liberals exploit black identity to push their own political agenda. 

That didn’t go over well. 

Soon after, he said he ended up getting “blacklisted” by all of the galleries in the Lower East Side, Chelsea, and most of the galleries in Soho. 

Now, Arthur says that he has a better understanding of what “cancel culture” really is. While Arthur self describes as an “anarchist” and is probably not precisely the boogeyman they want, he is the one they have and says he feels like he’s become a “walking trigger” to the art establishment in New York. 

Having some experience with the hatred directed at anyone who refuses to be confined by the victim narratives of any one of the progressive pet identity groups, we talked about how they seem to attack you even more angrily and obsessively for the sin of “leaving the reservation.” When you break out of the box they want you in — you’re not just an “other” — you’re a heretic and a traitor. 

Arthur talked about the kind of fear that men face when it comes to “cancel culture.” 

“As men, we’re standing for what is right, and if we offend some people — it is what it is — we don’t need everyone to like us because we’re doing what is right in our hearts.” 

But men also have responsibilities and commitments, and he believes that men are most worried about not being able to support themselves and their loved ones. 

“It’s one thing to be hated, but to be hated and poor is different.” 

While that was initially a concern, Arthur regards it all as a kind of “blessing in disguise.” “You find out who your real friends are.” He said that while he got canceled at the end of 2019, he actually sold more work and made more money in 2020. 

Arthur feels good about having spoken up when he did and says he has talked to many more painters who’ve said they feel the same way but remain afraid to risk cancellation. While he acknowledges that being among the first to do so sucks a little bit, because “the first people at the door get the brunt of the attack,” he has accepted that and says that, “while it may not be rewarded, it has to be done.”

Arthur sees an opportunity here to create a movement for dissident artists.

“Dissident artists are the ones who speak against collectivism. That’s what we do.” 

“If enough of us do that, then it begins to have the air of a movement — and then we can name it.”

He’s been working on the idea of an art movement he calls “originism” as a response to how postmodernism has destroyed aesthetic standards and become an arm of the radical left. Arthur believes that art needs to “re-center” itself and return to the “source” or the “origin” — to something timeless, something universally true, something transcendent. Something that points toward eternal forms. He sees postmodernism as a rejection of all of that, a rejection of essentialism and aesthetics and standards of beauty and excellence. He believes it is fundamentally motivated by a desire to blaspheme.  

Referencing Joseph Campbell, Arthur believes that “we need artists to constantly re-create these stories and myths.”

“That’s always been the job of artists, but we’ve forgotten that.”

Arthur sees art as the pursuit of truth and recalls the words of one of his mentors, a traditional sculptor named Renzo Maggi.

When they met, Maggi told him, “The main thing that makes an artist is analogous to what makes a man: the pursuit of truth. You can’t be an artist unless you are pursuing truth.”

You can find more of Arthur’s work at https://www.arthurkwonlee.com, and follow his creative journey on Instagram and Twitter. 

Photo credit: Jack Donovan