In Conversation with Dr. Lena Fritsch and Dr. Charlotte Horlyck
Saturday 21 March, 2015 4-6pm followed by a Reception
Image courtesy of Lisson Gallery
Korean Cultural Centre UK Grand Buildings, 1-3 Strand London WC2N 5BW (Main Entrance on Northumberland Avenue)
RSVP by the 18 March 2015
E: [email protected] T: +44(0)20 7004 2600
Co-organised by Korean Culture Centre UK and Tate Research Centre: Asia-Pacific
About the Artist
Painter, sculptor, writer and philosopher Lee Ufan came to prominence in the late 1960s as one of the major theoretical and practical proponents of the avant-garde Mono-ha (Object School) group.
The Mono-ha school of thought was Japan’s first contemporary art movement to gain interna¬tional recognition, it rejected Western notions of representation, focusing on the relationships of materials and perceptions rather than on expression or intervention.The artists of Mono-ha presented works made of raw physical materials that have barely been manipulated.
In 1991 Lee Ufan began his series of Correspondence paintings, which consist of just one or two greyblue brushstrokes, made of a mixture of oil and crushed stone pigment, applied onto a large white surface. His sculptural series Relatum is equally minimal: each work is comprised of one or more light-coloured round stones and dark, rectangular iron plates. The dialectical relationship between brushstroke and canvas is mimicked in the relationship between stone and iron plate. Lee’s installations space is at the same time untouched and engaged, at the confines between doing and non-doing. The relationship between painted / unpainted and occupied / empty space lies at the heart of Lee Ufan’s practice.
Lee Ufan was born on June 24th, 1936, in Kyongnam, South Korea. He studied calligraphy, poetry and painting at the College of Kyongnam and the University of Seoul. Lee has been the subject of major shows at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels (2009); the Yokohama Museum of Art (2005); the Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne Métropole (2005); the Samsung Museum of Modem Art Seoul (2003); Kunstmuseum Bonn (2001); the Galerie Nationale du jeu de Paume, Paris (1997); and the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul (1994). He was awarded the Praemium Imperiale for painting in 2001 and the UNESCO Prize in 2000. In 2010 the Lee Ufan Museum, designed by Tadao Ando, opened at Benesse Art Site. Naoshima, Japan. In 2011, Lee’s work was featured at the Venice Biennale and the Solomon R Guggenhem. New York organized a retrospective of his works. Alfred Pacquement curated Lee’s 2014 exhibition in the gardens of Versailles.
About the Panellists
Dr Lena Fritsch is assistant curator at Tate Modem, working on exhibitions and acquisitions of international art with a focus on the Asian-Pacific region. Fritsch studied Art History. Japanese studies and English studies at Bonn University. Germany and Keio University, Tokyo. Her research focuses on Japanese art and photography of the 20th and 21 st Century.
Dr. Charlotte Horlyck lectures on Korean art from pre-modem to contemporary times at SOAS where she also chairs the Centre of Korean Studies. She has published widely on Korean art in English, as well as in Korean and Spanish. Her co-edited volume Death, Morning, and The Afterlife was published by Hawaii University Press in 2014.
