Lee Ufan was one of the founders and the principal theorist of the art movement known as Mono-Ha, which emerged in Japan in 1968. As was the case in other movements which were active in Europe and the United States at the same time, Mono-Ha participated in a profound questioning of the very foundations of art, even its very definition.
At the ccc od lee ufan will be showing an exhibition that has been profoundly inspired by the darkness emanating from the exhibition space, the Black Gallery, which has been specially chosen for this project. Here six unseen installations can be discovered walking through six rooms, expressed using the quintessential elements of his artistic lexicon, with sculptures marrying stone found in the natural world and industrial metal, and paintings showing the trace of a single gesture. Moving from shadow into light, each installation is an invitation to encounter and meditate.
Lee Ufan’s works display an extreme simplicity of form and are characterised by his minimal intervention in terms of space and materials, based on the principle that “seeing, choosing, borrowing or moving are all part of the creative act.” The artist’s research is based on the association of ‘doing and not doing’, what is created and what exists already. The void and the resonance between objects are conferred with as much importance as the objects themselves. Thus Lee Ufan is developing an ‘art of encounter’ based on his artistic expression, building bridges between the visible and the invisible, between humans and the infinite space surrounding them. Using pared-down sculptural methods, the silent art of Lee Ufan elicits a physical and metaphysical experience of “being in the world”.
CCC OD
Jardin François 1er
37000 Tours