Lee Ufan: From Point, From Line, From Wind, Pace Gallery

After a killer year of major exhibitions for Lee Ufan, Pace Gallery presents its first solo London show of his work.
Who is Lee Ufan? Biography
Born in South Korea, Lee made a radical departure from his studies as a philosophy undergraduate in Seoul in the early 1960s, moving to Tokyo and transforming the face of Japanese contemporary art forever.
Today, Lee’s paintings, sculptures and his immense body of theoretical writing are recognised as the origins of the ‘Mono-ha’ movement, now considered a landmark for minimalism in the 20^th century.
Lee Ufan paintings & technique
Lee’s painted series exerted perhaps the greatest influence: developed and then obsessively re-iterated throughout his prolific career. The most well-known are From Line and From Point, in which the artist reduces painterly gesture to just a few marks, combining the influences of Zen philosophy and Western minimalism to produce a very contemplative viewing experience.
Lee Ufan Pace 2015
You will also want to catch the newer series From Winds, with a frenzied cacophony of multi-layered brushstrokes, and the most recent Dialogue works which reduce Lee's marks to a single stroke applied in one gesture with a wide brush over pristine canvas. Get to grips with these paintings by remembering that Lee always employs blue or red hues to evoke the sky and the earth.
But it would be a mistake to simply see this exhibition as part of the story of East Asian art. Lee refutes the idea that art should be appreciated through a geographical lens. Instead, we should remember that art has no borders - it's fundamentally indefinable.
One of the many reasons why we love the timeless Mono-ha movement and the powerful legacy that Lee Ufan is building in global contemporary art!