The “Pendulum” Swings: Mike Lee @ HALF Gallery, NYC

Assimilation is not a monolith. Just as notions of the American Dream shapeshift so, too, does the vision of that fantasy. In Mike Lee’s case, he has witnessed a refocusing on family and shared values. This embrace of a more traditional mindset echoes his parents’ generation, even if theirs was an immigrant Korean-American experience. Sometimes we need this outside perspective to show us who we are as a people. Perhaps the most famous roadtrip photography book, “The Americans,” by Robert Frank was a cross-country visual diary from a Swiss documentarian. There’s a critical distance from the normative, which in turn helps us locate a new center. Mike Lee grew up largely with an absent father who personified a form of…