Events > Artist Talk/Lecture

17 - 20 Aug. 2017

Chris Lee: A Talk at A-B-Z-TXT

Art Metropole is pleased to co-present Toronto and Buffalo-based designer Chris Lee for a talk during A-B-Z-TXT, a summer typography school in Toronto. While typography may conjure visions of old men in black turtlenecks teaching calligraphy, A-B-Z-TXT is decidedly medium-less and anti-disciplinary, mixing graphic design with media arts and a dash of linguistics.

A-B-Z-TXT
Date: August 17-20, 2017
Location: Gallery 44, 401 Richmond St. W, #120

A graduate of OCAD University and Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam, Chris Lee’s practice goes beyond design as a pure service to include writing, teaching, as well as self-initiated research and creation. For A-B-Z-TXT, Lee will relate typographic form to currency and statecraft—from clay tablets to metal coins and cryptographic technologies like blockchain.

Other A-B-Z-TXT contributors will include artists and designers focused on typography, language, and computation: Lois Andison, Michèle Champagne, Zach Lieberman, Ali S. Qadeer, Mindy Seu, and Xavier Snelgrove.

The school is for professional designers, artists, and coders. It will accept between 20 and 25 participants, and it takes place at Gallery 44 in Toronto, from 17-20 August 2017.

The deadline for application is 21 July 2017.

To apply, go to a-b-z.co.


Chris Lee is a graphic designer based in toronto, ca and buffalo, usa. he is a graduate of ocadu and the sandberg instituut, and has worked for the walrus magazine, metahaven and bruce mau design. chris researches and explores the co-terminal relationship between currency and graphic design, particularly typography, as a way to reflect on design’s entanglement with power, the inertia of standards, the problem of legitimacy, and the validation of testimony. his work seeks opportunities for speculating on alternative, non-coercive and decolonial forms for exchange. currently, chris is an assistant professor at the university at buffalo suny, and a member of the programming committee of gendai gallery.

  1. Chris Lee: A Talk at A-B-Z-TXT