Lee Ufan, Installation view, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, 2012

Lee Ufan

Lee Ufan

January 16 – February 20, 2010
Los Angeles

Thirty Years:
Written with a Splash of Blood

January 13 – March 3, 2024
Los Angeles

Dansaekhwa and Minimalism

April 14 – May 21, 2016
New York

Dansaekhwa and Minimalism

January 16 – March 12, 2016
Los Angeles

From All Sides: Tansaekhwa on Abstraction

Curated by Joan Kee
September 13 – November 8, 2014
Los Angeles

Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha

Curated by Mika Yoshitake
February 25 – April 14, 2012
Los Angeles

15th Anniversary Inaugural Exhibition

October 3 – November 14, 2009
Los Angeles

Biography

Lee Ufan (b. 1936, Haman-gun, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea) studied art at Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea. After emigrating to Japan in 1956, he obtained a degree in philosophy at Nihon University, Tokyo in 1961. Following a period of experimentation with fluorescent optical art practices that were popular in mid-1960s Tokyo, by the end of the decade Lee became known as one of the key practitioners and theorists among a loose group of artists working with site-specific installation, who were later referred to as Mono-ha (“school of things”). In dialogue with Post-Minimalist practices, Lee’s work developed out of Mono-ha’s phenomenological exploration of the encounter between natural and industrial objects arranged directly on the floor or in outdoor locations. One of the most iconic works from this period, Phenomenon and Perception B (1968, later renamed Relatum), consisted of a rectangular sheet of glass that had cracked under the weight of the large stone placed on top of it, revealing unique, intricate spatial and perceptual relations between the two materials and the floor. 

What has distinguished Lee is his refined technique of repetition as a studied production of difference developed over time. From 1974, he began to explore painting in a parallel practice that saw him engaging in artistic dialogue with his peers in Korea, whose minimal canvases were later termed Dansaekhwa (“monochrome painting”). Through the continuous repetition of a gestural act in the From Line and From Point series, Lee loads his brush with mixed pigment and begins applying a single linear stroke or point onto the canvas one by one until the pigment has faded. He then repeats this process in an orderly fashion. In the From Winds and With Winds series that he developed during the 1980s, Lee employs more dynamic and expressive gestures. By contrast, his Dialogue paintings, dating from the 2000s, are more restrained: minimal applications of paint as single, large brushstrokes within an expansive field of white canvas. Deeply rooted in his understanding of Eastern and Western aesthetics, philosophies, and traditions, Lee’s works utilize a gestural economy to achieve the maximum possible resonance. Lee currently lives and works in Kamakura, Japan, and Paris, France.

Lee has been the subject of numerous institutional solo exhibitions, including Hamburger Banhof, Berlin, Germany (2023); National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan (2022); Dia:Beacon, Beacon, NY (2019); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. (2019); Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France (2019); Couvent Sainte-Marie de la Tourette, Éveux, France (2017); Centre de Création Contemporaine Olivier Debré, Tours, France (2017); Château La Coste, Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade, France (2016); Palace of Versailles, France (2014); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY (2011); Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium (2009); Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan (2005); Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole, Rhône-Alpes, France (2005); Leeum, Samsung Museum of Modern Art, Seoul, South Korea (2003); Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany (2001); Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, France (1997); and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea (1994). He was awarded the UNESCO Prize in 2000 and the Praemium Imperiale for painting in 2001. Three museums are dedicated to his work: the Lee Ufan Museum, designed by Tadao Ando, which was inaugurated on Naoshima, Japan, in 2010, Space Lee Ufan at the Busan Museum of Art, Busan, South Korea, which opened in 2015, and Lee Ufan Arles, which opened in Arles, France in 2022. Lee’s work is represented in major museum collections including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Dia Art Foundation, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Tate Gallery, London, UK; and the Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan.

 

Selected Works

News

W Magazine: An Art Lover’s Guide to Arles

07/26/2023

Lee Ufan | Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe, Japan

12/13/2022

Lee Ufan | The National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan

08/10/2022

Hyperallergic: The Quiet Chaos in Lee Ufan’s New Paintings

10/04/2018

ARTnews: Dia Art Foundation Acquires Works by Lee Ufan and Kishio Suga

07/10/2017

ArtAsiaPacific: Lee Ufan at Versailles

12/01/2015

Related Publications

Lee Ufan

Lee Ufan: Open Dimension

Lee Ufan

Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity

L'atelier de Lee Ufan

Lee Ufan: The Art of Encounter

From All Sides: Tansaekhwa On Abstraction

Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha

Mono-ha: School of Things

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