Lee U-Fan
Encyclopedia
Lee U-Fan is a Korean. minimalist painter and sculptor and leader of the Japanese material school Monoha in the late 1960s. Lee advocated a methodology of de-westernization and demodernization in both theory and practice as an antidote to the Eurocentric thought of 1960s postwar Japanese society. Lee divides his time between Kamakura, Japan and Paris, France.
, Gyeongsang Nam-do, a remote village of South Korea, in 1936, Lee Ufan was raised by his parents and Confucianist grandfather. Lee studied painting at the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University
for just two months and, in 1956, moved to Japan, where he earned a degree in philosophy in 1961. Whilst studying philosophy Ufan painted in a restrained, traditional Japanese style, eschewing the expressive abstraction of the contemporary Japanese Gutai movement.
Lee spent his early working years pursuing careers as an art critic, philosopher, and artist. In Japan he became an active participant in the countercultural upheavals surrounding the Anpo Movement of the 1960s. He came to prominence in the late 1960s as one of the founders and theoretical leaders of the avant garde Mono-ha (Object School) group. Monoha was inspired by the Arte Povera
movement of the 1960s and Japan's first contemporary art movement to gain international recognition. The Monoha school of thought rejected Western
notions of representation, choosing to focus on the relationships of materials and perceptions rather than on expression or intervention. The movement's goal was to embrace the world at large and encourage the fluid coexistence of numerous beings, concepts, and experiences. Lee U-fan's position in the philosophy department at Nihon University in Tokyo
earned him a distinguished role as the movement's spokesman. In the early 1970s he was appointed Professor of Tama Art University
in Tokyo until 2007. Yoshio Itagaki
was one of his students in 1989-1991. He is Professor emeritus at Tama Art University
.
Lee was also a pivotal figure in the Korean tansaekhwa (monochrome painting) school, which offered a fresh approach to minimalist abstraction by presenting repetitive gestural marks as bodily records of time’s perpetual passage. In his early painting series, From Point and From Line (1972–84), Lee combines ground mineral pigment with animal-skin glue, traditional to East Asian painting on silk. Each brushstroke is applied slowly and is composed of several layers. Where the brush first makes contact with the canvas, the paint is thick, forming a 'ridge' that gradually becomes lighter. Rarely does his brush touch the surface more than three times. The artist refers to this as yohaku or the art of emptiness. In the From Point works he adopted a similar method in order to produce a fading series of small, discrete, rectangular brushstokes. In 1991 Lee began his series of Correspondance paintings, which consist of just one or two grey-blue brushstrokes, made of a mixture of oil and crushed stone pigment, applied onto a large white surface. On average it takes Lee about a month to finish a painting, on canvases that typically measure about 60 by 90 inches, although they can vary in size from a few inches to 10 feet per side. He completes no more than 25 works a year.
Lee's sculptures, presenting dispersed arrangements of stones together with industrial materials like steel plates, rubber sheets, and glass panes, recast the discrete object as a network of relations based on parity between the viewer, materials, and site. In his sculptural series Relatum, each work consists of one or more light-colored round stones and dark, rectangular iron plates.
to participate in Documenta
VI (1977) in Kassel, and in 1969 and 1973 he represented Korea in the Bienal de São Paulo. His work was included in the 1992 Tate Liverpool
exhibition, "Working With Nature: Traditional Thought in Contemporary Art from Korea", the first major survey of Korean art shown in Britain. In 1997 he had a solo exhibition at the Jeu de Paume
, Paris and in 2001 the Kunstmuseum Bonn
held a major retrospective of his work. Major exhibitions of Lee's painting and sculpture were later held at the Yokohama Museum of Art
in 2005 and the Musée d'art Moderne Saint-Etienne
in France in December 2005. The Kunst Situation, a museum associated with Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, opened in 2006 with a gallery devoted to a permanent installation of Lee Ufan's paintings and a garden of his sculpture. However, it was Lee’s "Resonance" exhibition at Palazzo Palumbo Fossati during the 2007 Venice Biennale
that won him critical acclaim and a wider audience. In 2011, the Guggenheim Museum in New York opened Lee's largest retrospective in the United States.
Lee’s primary dealers are Pace Gallery
, in New York; Kukje, in Seoul; Scai the Bathhouse, in Tokyo; and Lisson Gallery
, in London.
, New York; Guggenheim Museum
, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou
, Paris; Tate Gallery
, London; Kröller-Müller Museum
, Otterlo Holland; the National Museums of Modern Art in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. His work is also held in the permanent collection of the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art
.
in Paris. He received the UNESCO Prize at the Shanghai Biennale
in 2000; the Ho-Am Prize of the Samsung Foundation in Korea in 2001; and the 13th Praemium Imperiale
for painting in 2001. In 2010, the Lee Ufan Museum, a building designed by Tadao Ando
and operated by Benesse
, opened on the island of Naoshima, Japan.
in New York in 2010.
Work
Born in Haman-gunHaman County
Haman County is a county in South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. The local government is seated in Gaya-eup. The county magistrate is Seok Gyu Jin....
, Gyeongsang Nam-do, a remote village of South Korea, in 1936, Lee Ufan was raised by his parents and Confucianist grandfather. Lee studied painting at the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University
Seoul National University
Seoul National University , colloquially known in Korean as Seoul-dae , is a national research university in Seoul, Korea, ranked 24th in the world in publications in an analysis of data from the Science Citation Index, 7th in Asia and 42nd in the world by the 2011 QS World University Rankings...
for just two months and, in 1956, moved to Japan, where he earned a degree in philosophy in 1961. Whilst studying philosophy Ufan painted in a restrained, traditional Japanese style, eschewing the expressive abstraction of the contemporary Japanese Gutai movement.
Lee spent his early working years pursuing careers as an art critic, philosopher, and artist. In Japan he became an active participant in the countercultural upheavals surrounding the Anpo Movement of the 1960s. He came to prominence in the late 1960s as one of the founders and theoretical leaders of the avant garde Mono-ha (Object School) group. Monoha was inspired by the Arte Povera
Arte Povera
Arte Povera is a modern art movement. The term was introduced in Italy during the period of upheaval at the end of the 1960s, when artists were taking a radical stance. Artists began attacking the values of established institutions of government, industry, and culture, and even questioning whether...
movement of the 1960s and Japan's first contemporary art movement to gain international recognition. The Monoha school of thought rejected Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
notions of representation, choosing to focus on the relationships of materials and perceptions rather than on expression or intervention. The movement's goal was to embrace the world at large and encourage the fluid coexistence of numerous beings, concepts, and experiences. Lee U-fan's position in the philosophy department at Nihon University in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
earned him a distinguished role as the movement's spokesman. In the early 1970s he was appointed Professor of Tama Art University
Tama Art University
is a private university in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan. The predecessor of the school was founded in 1935 as a spinoff from what is today Musashino Art University...
in Tokyo until 2007. Yoshio Itagaki
Yoshio Itagaki
is a Japanese artist and photographer. He has appeared on the American television program Nightline and on News 11 on Japan's NHK.-Education:Itagaki received a B.A. in Studio Art from Tama Art University in 1991 and an M.A. in Studio Art from New York University in 1995...
was one of his students in 1989-1991. He is Professor emeritus at Tama Art University
Tama Art University
is a private university in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan. The predecessor of the school was founded in 1935 as a spinoff from what is today Musashino Art University...
.
Lee was also a pivotal figure in the Korean tansaekhwa (monochrome painting) school, which offered a fresh approach to minimalist abstraction by presenting repetitive gestural marks as bodily records of time’s perpetual passage. In his early painting series, From Point and From Line (1972–84), Lee combines ground mineral pigment with animal-skin glue, traditional to East Asian painting on silk. Each brushstroke is applied slowly and is composed of several layers. Where the brush first makes contact with the canvas, the paint is thick, forming a 'ridge' that gradually becomes lighter. Rarely does his brush touch the surface more than three times. The artist refers to this as yohaku or the art of emptiness. In the From Point works he adopted a similar method in order to produce a fading series of small, discrete, rectangular brushstokes. In 1991 Lee began his series of Correspondance paintings, which consist of just one or two grey-blue brushstrokes, made of a mixture of oil and crushed stone pigment, applied onto a large white surface. On average it takes Lee about a month to finish a painting, on canvases that typically measure about 60 by 90 inches, although they can vary in size from a few inches to 10 feet per side. He completes no more than 25 works a year.
Lee's sculptures, presenting dispersed arrangements of stones together with industrial materials like steel plates, rubber sheets, and glass panes, recast the discrete object as a network of relations based on parity between the viewer, materials, and site. In his sculptural series Relatum, each work consists of one or more light-colored round stones and dark, rectangular iron plates.
Exhibitions
From his first solo exhibition in Japan in 1967, Lee Ufan was invited by Manfred SchneckenburgerManfred Schneckenburger
Manfred Schneckenburger is a German art historian and curator of modern and contemporary art.Schneckenburger studied German literature, history, and the history of art. He first worked as a school teacher for some years and later as an art critic. In 1972, he organized the cultural program for the...
to participate in Documenta
Documenta
documenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau which took place in Kassel at that time...
VI (1977) in Kassel, and in 1969 and 1973 he represented Korea in the Bienal de São Paulo. His work was included in the 1992 Tate Liverpool
Tate Liverpool
Tate Liverpool is an art gallery and museum in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The museum was an initiative of the Merseyside Development Corporation...
exhibition, "Working With Nature: Traditional Thought in Contemporary Art from Korea", the first major survey of Korean art shown in Britain. In 1997 he had a solo exhibition at the Jeu de Paume
Jeu de paume
Jeu de paume is a ball-and-court game that originated in France. It was an indoor precursor of tennis played without racquets, though these were eventually introduced. It is a former Olympic sport, and has the oldest ongoing annual world championship in sport, first established over 250 years ago...
, Paris and in 2001 the Kunstmuseum Bonn
Kunstmuseum Bonn
The Kunstmuseum Bonn or Bonn Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Bonn, Germany, founded in 1947. The Kunstmuseum exhibits both temporary exhibitions and its collection. Its collection is focused on Rhenish Expressionism and post-war German art...
held a major retrospective of his work. Major exhibitions of Lee's painting and sculpture were later held at the Yokohama Museum of Art
Yokohama Museum of Art
Yokohama Museum of Art , founded in 1989, is located in the futuristic Minato Mirai 21 district of Yokohama city next to the Yokohama Landmark Tower, the tallest building in Japan.-The collections:...
in 2005 and the Musée d'art Moderne Saint-Etienne
Saint-Étienne
Saint-Étienne is a city in eastern central France. It is located in the Massif Central, southwest of Lyon in the Rhône-Alpes region, along the trunk road that connects Toulouse with Lyon...
in France in December 2005. The Kunst Situation, a museum associated with Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, opened in 2006 with a gallery devoted to a permanent installation of Lee Ufan's paintings and a garden of his sculpture. However, it was Lee’s "Resonance" exhibition at Palazzo Palumbo Fossati during the 2007 Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
that won him critical acclaim and a wider audience. In 2011, the Guggenheim Museum in New York opened Lee's largest retrospective in the United States.
Lee’s primary dealers are Pace Gallery
Pace Gallery
The Pace Gallery is a New York City-based exhibition space. It was founded in 1960 in Boston by Arne Glimcher.-PaceWildenstein:From 1993 until April 1, 2010, the gallery became "PaceWildenstein," a joint business venture between the Pace Gallery and Wildenstein & Co....
, in New York; Kukje, in Seoul; Scai the Bathhouse, in Tokyo; and Lisson Gallery
Lisson Gallery
The Lisson Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Bell Street, Lisson Grove, London, founded by Nicholas Logsdail in 1967. The gallery represents such artists as Ai Weiwei, John Latham, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Jonathan Monk, Julian Opie, Richard Wentworth and Turner Prize winners Anish Kapoor...
, in London.
Collections
Lee is represented in major museum collections including: MoMAMoma
Moma may refer to:* Moma , an owlet moth genus* Moma Airport, a Russian public airport* Moma District, Nampula, Mozambique* Moma River, a right tributary of the Indigirka River* Google Moma, the Google corporate intranet...
, New York; Guggenheim Museum
Guggenheim Museum
Guggenheim Museum may refer to:* The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, United States* The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy* The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain* The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas, United States...
, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais...
, Paris; Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
, London; Kröller-Müller Museum
Kröller-Müller Museum
The Kröller-Müller Museum is an art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands.-Museum:...
, Otterlo Holland; the National Museums of Modern Art in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. His work is also held in the permanent collection of the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art
The Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art is an art museum founded in 1989. It is in Hijiyama Park in the Hiroshima City, Japan. The building was designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa.-Representative collections:-External links:*...
.
Recognition
In 1997, Lee was invited to serve as visiting professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-ArtsÉcole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
The École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts is the distinguished National School of Fine Arts in Paris, France.The École des Beaux-arts is made up of a vast complex of buildings located at 14 rue Bonaparte, between the quai Malaquais and the rue Bonaparte, in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Près,...
in Paris. He received the UNESCO Prize at the Shanghai Biennale
Shanghai Biennale
The Shanghai Biennale is the highest-profile contemporary art event in the city and the most established art biennale in China.Aside from its main museum show, it also includes talks, lectures and installations in various venues throughout the city....
in 2000; the Ho-Am Prize of the Samsung Foundation in Korea in 2001; and the 13th Praemium Imperiale
Praemium Imperiale
The Praemium Imperiale is an arts prize awarded since 1989 by the imperial family of Japan on behalf of the Japan Art Association in the fields painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and theatre/film...
for painting in 2001. In 2010, the Lee Ufan Museum, a building designed by Tadao Ando
Tadao Ando
is a Japanese architect whose approach to architecture was once categorized by Francesco Dal Co as critical regionalism. Ando has led a storied life, working as a truck driver and boxer prior to settling on the profession of architecture, despite never having taken formal training in the field...
and operated by Benesse
Benesse
is a Japanese company which focusses on correspondence education and publishing. Based in Okayama-City, it is the parent company of Berlitz Language Schools, which in turn is the parent company of ELS Language Centers...
, opened on the island of Naoshima, Japan.
At auction
Lee's paintings regularly fetch six-figure dollar sums at auction. A 1980 canvas with a series of vertical blue lines, for example, went for $410,000 at Sotheby'sSotheby's
Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
in New York in 2010.