The Buffalo AKG Art Museum announced Sin Wai Kin: It’s Always You, a new solo exhibition of the work of one of the world’s most exciting visual artists, which will be on view in the museum’s Ronnen Glass Box Theater from March 1 to August 12, 2024.

It’s Always You, 2021, which the Buffalo AKG acquired in 2022, encourages viewers to reflect on the performance and commodification of identity in our present moment. The two-channel video work features a boyband of Sin’s construction in which they perform dressed up as each of the band’s four members—The Universe, The Storyteller, The One, and Wai King (a pun on the artist’s name). Each sways in slow motion against a greenscreen to a slow beating rhythm, alternately taking on the frontperson’s solo as they flirtatiously repeat the captivating lyrics.

The personalities that Sin deploys through each character developed out of their careful research into boyband culture, from late 1990s groups such as the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC to contemporary groups such as BTS and Mirror. The members of such bands are often marketed individually, creating distinct fandoms around each. This sociocultural phenomenon serves as the backdrop for the universal message of It’s Always You: that all gender in the social sphere is a staged performance. In addition to the video, the installation features framed “publicity” posters and life-size cutouts of each of the group’s characters, with which visitors are invited to pose and take selfies. By actively engaging with Sin’s work, the public plays along in the performance and commodification of gender identity—a role that offers a collective escape into a world that celebrates the diversity of all beings.

Sin Wai Kin (Canadian, born 1991) produces complicated fictions based on their own journey through the spectrum of gender identity. In their teens, they became interested in the Toronto drag scene but found true liberation in the fluidity of London’s thriving queer community and drag cabarets when they relocated there in 2009. Around this time, the artist performed as Victoria Sin, a drag character that exuded a larger-than-life female archetype. In the artist’s own words, through “a process of doing [female] drag and purposefully putting on a gender and then taking it off again,” Sin’s nonbinary identity was realized. These personal experiences inform their fantastical narratives, in which Sin aims to interrupt social norms around issues of desire, identification, and objectification.

Voices in Contemporary Art

On Friday, May 3, the artist will be in conversation from 6:30 to 8 pm in the museum’s auditorium as part of the Voices in Contemporary Art speaker series. During this free event, Sin Wai Kin will introduce and screen two of their films, Today’s Top Stories, 2020, and A Dream of Wholeness in Parts, 2021, followed by a discussion and Q&A.

Reading Group and Story-Sharing Workshop

On Saturday, May 4, the artist will lead a reading group and story-sharing workshop in the museum’s Digital Media Studio from 2 to 4 pm. This free workshop is intended for ages 16 and up, and preregistration is required as spots are limited. Developed for the Buffalo AKG by the artist, the session will feature a round table discussion on Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction and methodologies for queer storytelling. Using the essay as a model, the artist will lead a discussion about how the structure of narratives affects the way we exist in the world.

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About the Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Founded in 1862, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly the Albright-Knox Art Gallery) is the sixth-oldest public art institution in the United States. For more than 160 years, the Buffalo AKG has collected, conserved, and exhibited the art of its time, often working directly with living artists. This tradition has given rise to one of the world’s most extraordinary collections of modern and contemporary art.

In summer 2023, following the completion of the most significant campus development and expansion project in its history, the Buffalo AKG opened anew to the public. The project is funded by a $230 million capital campaign, the largest such campaign for a cultural institution in the history of Western New York, including $195 million raised for construction and $35 million in additional operating endowment funds.

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