10 things to know about Lee Ufan

From the series 10 things...

Each year the Rijksmuseum stages a free outdoor sculpture exhibition in the gardens. For this year’s 11th edition we invited Lee Ufan to present his work. The Rijksmuseum Gardens form the backdrop to the sculptor’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands. So who is this unique artist?

Crack

In 1968, the career of Lee Ufan (1936) received a significant boost, when he dropped an enormous boulder onto a sheet of glass. This was the first work in his Relatum series, which he is still working on to this day.

Relatum

Lee’s explores the relationship between his art, the viewer and the surrounding space and events taking place within it. ‘I bring together natural stone and industrial steel plate, there’s nothing more to it than that ,’ explains Lee, ‘Yet this encounter gives rise to an enigmatic experience.’

Internationally oriented

Lee was born in a rural village in Korea. In 1956 he moved to Japan to study literature and philosophy. He currently works from Paris and Tokyo.

Mono-ha

He is one of the founders of the Japanese avant-garde art movement Mono-ha (‘School of Things’), whose members use stone, iron, plate steel, rubber, glass and cotton to explore the relationship between objects and space.

Stones

Lee Ufan does not change the stones he uses in any way – he simply relocates them. Selecting the right stone is a painstaking process. ‘It is as difficult to understand the stones of a certain region as it is to understand the people who live there,’ Lee wrote in 1988.

Family

This is sculpture in its simplest form: a steel pipe leaning against a large, heavy stone – a product of industry and a product of nature. Lee sees these two materials as belonging to the same family: steel is made from elements found in stone, after all, so stone is the ‘mother’ of steel.

Mystery

The components of a Lee Ufan sculpture are encounter, emptiness, space and time – they all come together in the stones he uses. ‘Stones have an endless lifespan,’ says Lee, ‘They radiate a cosmic power. They bathe in mystery. I sense something of the unknown in stones.”

Experience

Lee’s works of art are not intended to be isolated objects: their influence on their surroundings is much more important. By placing his work in specific environments Lee changes not only the space, but also the way you experience your own presence within it.

Sorry

The artist doesn’t lift the stones like he used to – he is 88 years old after all – but he does move them himself. And he apologises to the stones as he does so, because he sees them as living beings.

Art?

Is positioning stones and steel plates a form of art? You can decide this yourself, and it is an interesting question for Lee. For him it’s not about the relationship between the artist and the work; he wants you to see in a new way.

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