Lee Ufan: Quiet Resonance /  by Christophe C

Within spaces designed by the artist, this exhibition by Lee Ufan distils over six decades of considered experimentation into a series of recent paintings and sculptures created especially for the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Lee’s sparing use of simple materials, including stone, steel and canvas, has a quiet force that encourages contemplation and consideration of the physical and intellectual self in relation to the work. Lee is also a writer whose philosophical approach to art embraces Zen Buddhism and Confucianism, alongside the ideas of classical and modern European philosophers.  

Lee values the power of emptiness to generate both harmony and tension between objects and people. For him, the space around objects is as significant as the objects themselves. His conceptual and minimalist approach has been influential in art, design and philosophy, with artists Anish Kapoor and Park Seo-Bo as well as architect Tadao Ando among the prominent figures inspired by his art. 

Born in Korea in 1936, Lee lives between Japan and France. He studied painting in Seoul before relocating to Tokyo to study philosophy. In the 1960s he was a founder of Japan’s Mono-ha (School of Things) movement, which emphasised relationships between natural and industrial materials, and between objects and their viewers. He was also associated with the Dansaekhwa monochrome movement that emerged in Korea in the 1950s as part of a search for a universal aesthetic that was separate from tradition and without nationalist associations. 

It's been almost 50 years since Lee’s work was presented at the Art Gallery in the 1976 Biennale of Sydney. His first Sydney solo exhibition follows recent exhibitions of his work at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin, National Art Center in Tokyo, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Gwangju Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/lee-ufan/

Exhibition on view from 31 August 2024 – September 2025
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Naala Nura building, Ground level, Asian Lantern galleries

Lee Ufan Retrospective at Hamburger Bahnhof /  by Christophe C

Image credit: Lee Ufan, Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, 27 October 2023 – 28 April 2024 © Lee Ufan / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023. Photo: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / Jacopo La Forgia

Hamburger Bahnhof presents the first comprehensive retrospective of the painter and sculptor Lee Ufan in Germany. Lee is one of the most important representatives of the Mono-ha school in Japan and the Dansaekhwa movement in Korea, which developed in parallel to other minimal art movements. The exhibition shows about 50 works from the past five decades. Lee’s decades-long engagement with painting is addressed by an extraordinary highlight: Rembrandt’s famous Self-Portrait with Velvet Beret (1634) from the Berlin Gemäldegalerie is shown for the first time at Hamburger Bahnhof and enters into a dialogue with Lee’s expansive installation “Relatum – The Mirror Road” (2016/2023). In this way, Lee’s art introduces visitors to the formative art movements of Japan and Korea in the 1970s and provides a new perspective on an icon of Western European art.

https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/hamburger-bahnhof/exhibitions/detail/lee-ufan/

The exhibition is on view from October 27, 2023 to April 28, 2024.

Special Exhibition: Lee Ufan at Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art /  by Christophe C

This is a major retrospective exhibition dedicated to Lee Ufan (1936– ), a leading artist of one of the most important art trends in postwar Japan, Mono-ha (lit. “School of Things”). It covers his early works from the late 1960s to his latest works showcasing a whole new scope of art. As Lee has mainly exhibited overseas since the beginning of the 2000s, this will be his long-awaited full-scale solo exhibition in Japan since 2005.

https://www.artm.pref.hyogo.jp/eng/exhibition/

The exhibition is viewable from December 13, 2022 to February 12, 2023.

Lee Ufan: 15th Anniversary of the National Art Center, Tokyo /  by Christophe C

Exhibition view: Lee Ufan: 15th Anniversary of the National Art Center, Tokyo, The National Art Center, Tokyo (10 August–7 November 2022). Courtesy National Art Center, Tokyo.

From the National Art Center, Tokyo Press Release:

It is with great pleasure that we present a major retrospective by Lee Ufan (born in 1936), a contemporary artist who has received a great deal of attention internationally as a prominent member of the Japan-based Mono-ha group at the National Art Center, Tokyo commemorating its 15th Anniversary. […]

The exhibition assembles Lee's most important works, including everything from his earliest pre-Mono-ha pieces, which considered the problem of vision, the Relatum series, which changed the concept of sculpture, and his highly spiritual paintings, which produce a tranquil rhythm. In addition to showcasing Lee's past works, enabling us to trace the trajectory of his creation practice, the exhibition is also scheduled to include his latest ground-breaking efforts.

https://www.nact.jp/english/exhibitions/2022/leeufan/

The exhibition is viewable from August 10, 2022 to November 7, 2022.