Lee Ufan
1936, Kyongnam, South Korea
He lives and works between Japan and France
site-specific | permanent artwork
Response
2024
Fresco
Lee Ufan is the leading exponent of the Japanese Mono-Ha movement which focuses on the use of raw and minimally processed materials. In 1991, he began the Correspondence series of paintings, characterized by a pair of gray-blue brushstrokes created by mixing oil with crushed stone pigments and applied to a large white surface. The relationship between painted/unpainted surface and occupied/emptied space is central to the artist’s practice.
The ceiling fresco Response is a permanent and site-specific work created by Lee Ufan in 2024 as part of a larger project titled Beyond Venice.
temporary artworks
Beyond Venice
Response (3)
2023-2024
Acrylic on canvas
Lee Ufan is a leading exponent of the Japanese Mono-Ha movement, which focuses on the use of raw and minimally processed materials. In 1991, he began the Correspondence series of paintings, characterized by a pair of gray-blue brushstrokes created by mixing oil with crushed stone pigments and applied to a large white surface. The relationship between painted/unpainted surface and occupied/emptied space is central to Lee Ufan’s practice.
For Palazzo Diedo, Lee Ufan has produced a series of works titled Beyond Venice, comprising, in addition to the three large paintings, a permanent ceiling fresco and three installations.
Photos by Massimo Pistore
Beyond Venice
Relatum - Sound box
2024
Steel, stone, black paint
In Ufan’s installations, the space is at once integral and crowded, balancing on the edge between doing and not doing. His works highlight the process, the materials, and the viewer’s involvement in the experience. His art is a blend of aspects of minimalism, land art, and traditional Asian concepts of space and the landscape. At its core is the pursuit of transcendence: the focus is not on creating artistic objects but on using art to make the surrounding silence and emptiness visible, referring to them as “the great dazzling cosmos.”
Photos by Massimo Pistore
Beyond Venice
Relatum - The Notion of Stone
2024
Stone, paint, light bulb
The minimalist Relatum sculpture series is composed of one or more light-colored, round stones and dark, rectangular metal plates. The artist enriches the dialogue with the Eastern world by integrating large natural stones into the space, fostering interactions of profound poetic intensity between the forms and the materials. Additionally, he explores new spatial relationships through sculptures crafted from organic materials.
Photos by Massimo Pistore
Photos by Massimo Pistore
Relatum - The Location
2024
Steel, stone