In a creative departure, the artist Kenneth Tam spent the last year creating sculptures that honor the lives of Chinese laborers in Texas who helped build the country’s railroad system.
The artist turned the remote town of Marfa into a cultural pilgrimage site. Three decades after his death, the foundations charged with preserving his complicated legacy are debating how to move forward.
“I had been on the treadmill for so long. And then suddenly I felt like I could just be an artist again,” he says. His long obsession with photo books has now taken full flight.