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M+, Hong Kong, © Seung-Taek Lee
Seung-Taek Lee 李升澤
Godret Stone
1957
This sculpture is an early work by Lee Seung-taek, an important pioneer of experimental approaches in Korean art. Small stones are hung with rough cords at varying heights from a long wooden bar; the work appears at first as an abstract study of material juxtapositions, but both its structure and title refer to traditional weaving tools. Godret stones are small rocks used as loom weights to keep the warp threads of garments or other textiles immobile during the weaving process. The stones all have striking hourglass shapes, worn away over time by the cords. For Lee, the work’s connection to a traditional craft process is subservient to this contradiction of material properties—durable, solid objects become apparently soft and pliable, lending tangible form to the immateriality of time.
Godret Stone also makes use of the visual tension generated by the competing forces of gravity and suspension. The stability of the horizontal wooden bar is in perpetual contest with the implied weight of the hanging stones. Lee’s emphasis on the dynamics of the downward pull points to the influential concepts of ‘non-sculpture’ and ‘anti-art’ that thread through his career. Much of his work departs radically from the conventions of sculpture—a category typically defined as works that can stand upright as isolated objects in space—asking the viewer to consider the meaning of things when their original uses or properties are no longer present.
Godret Stone also makes use of the visual tension generated by the competing forces of gravity and suspension. The stability of the horizontal wooden bar is in perpetual contest with the implied weight of the hanging stones. Lee’s emphasis on the dynamics of the downward pull points to the influential concepts of ‘non-sculpture’ and ‘anti-art’ that thread through his career. Much of his work departs radically from the conventions of sculpture—a category typically defined as works that can stand upright as isolated objects in space—asking the viewer to consider the meaning of things when their original uses or properties are no longer present.
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