Lee Ufan and 'the mark’ of infinity
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presents, until the 28th of September, the first retrospective dedicated to the author in the U.S.
Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity marks the official recognition in the United States of the artist and philosopher, sculptor by excellence, who has developed his career between Korea, Japan and France in the last forty years. The exhibition offers a lecture of Lee’s work from the position of the teaching and artistic creativity of his homeland, both from a visual, conceptual and theoretical territory, which has radically increased the possibilities of post-minimalist art.
Richard Armstrong, head of the Solomon R. Guggenheim, expressed his desire to recognize Lee with the following words: "He is an artist with an extraordinary creative vision. Admired, and even reverenced abroad, he still remains surprisingly unknown in America". Born in South Korea in 1936, Lee Ufan has witnessed the political convulsions derived from the Japanese occupation and the war that divided the country in 1953. He began his training at the School of Fine Arts at the National University of Seoul but soon left to Japan to study philosophy. Further on, in the decade of 1970, he moved to Paris and has, since then, divided his time between Japan and France developing a theoretical production that has made him become an influent essayist in the area of aesthetics, phenomenology and structuralism.
As sculptor, painter and draftsman, his practice revolves around the notion of encounter and the relations established in the natural and human habitat that surrounds us. For this reason, he has decided to transform the space of the museum for this occasion and inhabit it with the 90 works included, which summarize his work since the decade of 1960 until the present day. Beginning from the round floor, his works extend along the six ramps designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and the two annexes and the levelled galleries. Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity is commissioned by Alexandra Munroe –conserver of Asian art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim- and by Sandhini Poddar, conservation assistant. Until the 28th of September in New York. Alejandro Martínez
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Lee Ufan. Relatum-Expansion place. 2008-2011. Courtesy The Pace Gallery (New York) andBlum & Poe (Los Angeles). Photo: David Heald. © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
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Lee Ufan. From cuts. 1965. Private collection, London. Photo: Jeremy Morris, London.
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Lee Ufan. Phenomenon. 1968. Courtesy Lee Ufan. Photo: Lee Ufan, outside of artist's studio in Kamakura, Japan, 1982.
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Lee Ufan. Dialogue. 2010. Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York. Gift of The Pace Gallery (New York) and Blum & Poe (Los Angeles), in honor of Lee Ufan, 2011. Photo: Norihiro Ueno.
Lee Ufan. Relatum-Expansion place. 2008-2011. Courtesy The Pace Gallery (New York) andBlum & Poe (Los Angeles). Photo: David Heald. © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.