Professor
jkee@umich.eduOffice Information:
170C Tappan Hall
phone: 734.764.7307
Education/Degree:
PhD, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2008JD, Harvard Law School, 2000
BA (Magna Cum Laude), History of Art, Yale University, 1997
Highlighted Work and Publications

The Geometries of Afro Asia: Art Beyond Solidarity
Joan Kee
How do we embark on a history of art from the assumption of a global majority, outside of the essentializing categories like race or hollow proclamations of solidarity? The Geometries of Afro Asia presents a framework for understanding the rich and surprisingly understudied relationship between Black and Asian artists and the worlds they initiate through their work. Kee breaks down this relationship and chronology into points, angles, and trajectories. Spanning North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, Kee looks at the relationships that formed between Black and Asian artists...
See MoreModels of Integrity: Art and Law in Post-Sixties America
Joan Kee
Models of Integrity examines the relationship between contemporary art and the law through the lens of integrity. In the 1960s, artists began to engage conspicuously with legal ideas, rituals, and documents. The law—a primary institution subject to intense moral and political scrutiny—was a widely recognized source of authority to audiences inside the art world and out. Artists frequently engaged with the law in ways that signaled a recuperation of the integrity that they believed had been compromised by the very institutions entrusted with establishing standards of just conduct. These ...
See MoreTo Scale
edited by Joan Kee and Emanuele Lugli
Wiley-Blackwell, 2016
Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method
Joan Kee
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013