Evoking a Cosmic Imagination: Lee Ufan in Conversation

A key figure in both the Mono-ha movement in Japan and the Dansaekhwa movement in Korea, Lee Ufan has built a body of work spanning painting, sculpture, and site-specific installations, including a major 2014 exhibition at the Château de Versailles. Underpinning his practice is a belief that what is left unmade matters as much as what is made.

‘Conventionally, the focus had always been solely on the act of making—the artist's concept was considered paramount,’ Lee says. ‘Breaking away from that, I realised that “making” means imposing my thoughts, whereas “not making” acknowledges the existence of the outside.’ From monochromatic, repetitive brushstrokes on canvas to sparse installations that pair natural and industrial elements, Lee’s work is marked by restraint. By limiting his own intervention, he shifts attention to the relationships between the materials, viewer, and space.

Lee’s sculptural installation Relatum—The Mirror Road (2021/2024)is currently on view at M+ as part of the exhibition Shanshui: Echoes and Signals. In the following conversation with M+ Artistic Director and Chief Curator Doryun Chong, Lee reflects on the evolution of his practice, what art can offer us in a post-AI world, and how shanshui might still open new ways of seeing.

Doryun Chong: Your path to becoming an artist was quite circuitous. You moved between Korea and Japan, and between literature and art, before settling on what you would do. Could you talk about how you ended up where you did?

Lee Ufan: I often wonder whether it might have been some trick of fate. Growing up, all I wanted was to write poetry or prose. But during summer vacation after my first year at university, my father sent me to Japan to bring medicine to my uncle, who had fallen ill. I went to Japan, and my uncle suggested that I should stay and study there, as war might break out again at any time.

While studying there, I realised that with my limited Japanese, there was no way I could pursue literature. I made friends who were studying art, so I started visiting gallery exhibitions and tagging along to painting classes. That’s how I ended up becoming an art student.

Even so, I couldn’t quite let go of my passion for literature, which is why I still write. I think this literary way of thinking has inspired my artistic practice and broadened my cultural horizons.

You were a leading figure in two movements that are now almost canonical in art history: Mono-ha, which began in the late 1960s in Japan, and Dansaekhwa monochrome painting, which began in the early 1970s in Korea. What were the urgencies that you felt in these countries at the time? 

In post-war Japan, there was this sense of futility following its defeat. On the other hand, there was a sudden drive to revitalise society and rebuild the nation. That energy culminated in the Osaka Expo ‘70, a grand showcase of modernity.

Yet there was a growing sense that the so-called ‘modern’ way of thinking—that feeling of accomplishment achieved through industrial society—had hit a dead end. This coincided with America’s eventual defeat in the Vietnam War, as well as the collapse of the modern ideal in Europe, which led to the May Revolution in Paris in 1968. There was a prevailing mood that we needed to break everything and start anew. Back home in Korea, I was involved in the reunification movement, and I believed the existing military regime needed to be taken down for us to open up a new era.

When I asked myself what I ought to do as an artist, I naturally gravitated towards violent work to express resistance. Around the winter of 1968, in the building where I was working part-time, there was all this glass left over from construction work. With permission, I took it and laid it out across a crowded street, picked up a large rock, and smashed the glass, piece by piece. In 1969, for the Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan, I placed sheets of paper out in the wind; they crumpled, I smoothed them, and they crumpled again, until they were completely ruined. It was a kind of negation or rejection of expression.

I came to realise that simple rejection wasn’t enough. I started to ask myself, ‘How did this come about?’ and ‘How should we present a new perspective?’ That led me to focus on relationships—between objects, between objects and space—and how an action unfolds. I began working under the overarching title Relatum.

Why is the concept of Relatum still so resonant for you after almost 60 years?

My starting point was destruction. But as I kept smashing the glass—twice, ten times, a hundred times, over many years—something changed. Gradually, it stopped being about negation. I started thinking about the relationship between the rock and the glass, and how things come into being and transform. I came to realise what’s most important is the relationship between the made and the unmade. I set out to create a dialogue with the outside.

What I consider most significant throughout my 50 years of practice is precisely that—the made and the unmade. The painted and the unpainted. Rather than the artist creating everything, the artist’s intervention is kept partial, and this allows the unmade to speak and appeal. The idea is to reduce production, examine the outside from a different perspective, and rethink expression itself.

By making that connection between the made and the unmade, perhaps my works can allow us to see beyond what we can perceive, to glimpse something far larger, far more abundant, far more infinite—something that might evoke a cosmic imagination.

You had a sprawling exhibition at the Château de Versailles in 2014, which included indoor and outdoor works. What informed your process for that exhibition? 

My approach is to explore what kind of dialogue can be sparked between a space and myself, and to conceive the work from that relationship. It's not about placing something 100 per cent premade anywhere. It's about asking, ‘How can I open up this space? How can I reveal a different aspect?’

Take the arch, for instance. I installed an arch along the path overlooking the canal at Versailles. When you erect a steel arch, what you see isn't the arch. Rather, the arch opens up the sky and makes the surrounding landscape appear more beautiful. Instead of centring the work itself, I planned the exhibition in a way that the work could open up the surroundings, revealing a world that is much wider and further away.

Relatum—The Mirror Road is part of our collection exhibition titled Shanshui: Echoes and Signals, in which our curators have endeavoured to reimagine the traditional notion of shanshui. For you, what does shanshui mean in our time?

Shanshui painting was created from an agrarian imagination and pastoral life. By the late 19th century, with the development of industrial urban society, shanshui lost much of its power, replaced by ambiguous landscape painting. Yet this concept of shanshui persists stubbornly, even now. What I do, in a sense, might be a fragment of shanshui. Why is this concept so important? Why can't we let go?

Gerhard Richter, who is still active today, deeply loves landscape painting rooted in German Romanticism. He says that there is something profoundly important hidden in its background, some meaning that has disappeared in our time. So, he says, we have no choice but to live a life of emptiness, and thus our expressions come out empty. And yet Richter paints many landscapes. He can't let go of these fragments of landscape; he's still holding onto that fantasy.

Similarly, in the Asian context, shanshui has an enduring presence. It’s dissolved, fermented, and resides in our bodies as an ‘esprit’. How can we pull this spirit out and bring it back into the realm of expression, as something alive, something that carries artistic resonance?

We are living in the era of AI, and everything is information-driven. But the dream of shanshui cannot be easily encompassed or resolved by the totality of knowledge. There is something far greater, something cosmic and unknown within it. Shanshui holds immensely important questions for us to contemplate today. 

We have some questions from the audience... Here’s one that I think could be a perfect last question: How can we persevere in our sensitivity when seeing an artwork or, more generally, in everyday life?

As humans, we need the unknown. We need doubt, pessimism, optimism, nonsensical thoughts, and such. AI pushes all that aside and says, ‘Here's the answer.’ There's no need for a process, time, or experience. But those are what make us human.

Art opens up our senses and sparks dialogue. Through such exchange, new ideas are formed, and discoveries are made. That’s why I think it will become increasingly important to go to exhibitions, concerts, plays, and movies—to engage and get in contact with those phenomena.

Of course, AI is important, but we shouldn’t be confined by it. We need to look further ahead, towards something transcendent. I hope for more opportunities that lead us to such experiences. Perhaps that’s my most heartfelt wish.