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Lot Essay
Painted in 1979, Lee Ufan’s From Point is a meditative essay on the act of painting that belongs to the artist’s most celebrated body of work. Combining the celebration of the gesture championed by the Abstract Expressionism, with the repetitive and refined units of Minimalism, Ufan’s work dissolves the boundaries of the traditional art historical cannon. The artist is one of the most influential figures of the Dansaekhwa (Monochrome) movement, a group of Korean abstract artists who were active during the 1970s and 1980s. As such, this is an exemplary example of the considered, layered progression of blue brushstrokes, each individually applied, with which he made his name. Maintaining the consistency of the brushstrokes while varying the amount of paint and pressure applied, Lee keeps “expression to a minimum in order to achieve the maximum” (L. Ufan, Lee Ufan, Tokyo, 1993, p. 3)
The almost hypnotic repetition of marks that comprise From Line is created by the artist pressing a brush loaded with blue paint suspended in viscous glue directly onto the surface of the canvas, then repeating the process until there is barely any pigment left on the filaments of the brush. He then reloads the brush with fresh pigment, before repeating the process again and again until the entire canvas is covered with the delicate lapis blue marks. Though linear uniformity draws attention to the painting’s actual space, as the hazy pigment gently fades away the artist invites viewers to consider what comes after the end of the canvas as well. Ufan sees the pigment gradually becoming liberated from himself, fully exhaling space, and thus celebrating the reductive ideals of his philosophical home, the Japanese school of painting know as Mono-ha (School of Things). Mono-ha’s philosophical subscribers celebrate what the earth has given, rather than participating in the futility of new creation. Reflecting Mono-ha’s touches to earth, and harkening back to one of the movement’s seminal works, Nobuo Sekine's Phase-Mother Earth, is Ufan’s use of blue. Blue is most intimate with earth and virtue in the artist’s native Korean tradition, emanating hope, life, integrity and spirit. It is the thoughts derived from viewing the work which Ufan plans to emphasize, as the artist noted, "the ideal for a work of art is to be a 'place of nothingness’” (L. Ufan, The Art of Encounter, exh. cat., Lisson Gallery, London, 2004, n.p.).
This investigation into the concept of infinity is present throughout Lee’s oeuvre, reaches its zenith in a painting such as the present example. The blank canvas acts as infinite space for Lee to explore the concepts of “body” and “encounter,” both important in understanding the artist’s work. “Encounter” considers the relationship between oneself and others, while “body” or “bodilyness” examines the interconnectedness of the body, the mind, and the world. Lee, well versed in the Western thought and phenomenology of Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merlearu-Panty, developed his own theory that art should try to encounter what he deems “the other,” or “the world.” A canvas provides Lee with the opportunity to create an encounter with the world in relationship with others, rather than remain in his own isolated world. Lee’s minimal expression of brushstrokes creates another passageway for relating himself with the world and others, connecting nature with the artificial, and the made with the unmade.
Lee Ufan studied philosophy at Nihon University in Tokyo after deciding it was essential to his future artistic endeavors. This decision would prove indispensable as his philosophical training would go on to inform not only his art but also his views on abstraction in general throughout his life as an artist. After finishing his studies and starting to paint full-time, Ufan would go on to become a key theorist and establishing member of the Mono-ha, an avant-garde materials-based art movement in 1960s Japan and the first Japanese contemporary art movement to gain international recognition. Here Ufan further developed his views on abstraction and established his notable style of his future works. His vision of abstraction however, was vastly different from those coming from western artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Instead of catalyzing his abstraction through expression and emotion, Ufan and the Mono-ha practitioners focused on perception and the relationship with their materials.
By spreading the pigment from thick to thin with every stroke of his brush and using the entire canvas, Lee Ufan creates an infinite array of shades and figures within his never-ending composition. “One way of showing the idea of infinity in a picture is in the repetition of figures” he says. “As with living organisms, it is repetition of birth and death, death and birth, yet it must be sequenced so each movement is unique and separate. The organic device whereby each brushstroke, each figure is independent and mutually related makes a picture full of forces” (L. Ufan, quoted in an unpublished Board note presented to Tate Gallery Trustees, July 1997, Tate Artist Catalogue File, Lee Ufan, A21074). In From Point, Lee's thoughtful and philosophical outlook is transformed on the canvas, with the inevitable naturalness of water seeking its own channel, into pulsating rhythms that reach out to the viewer and communicate a state of mind. In this lies all the mystery of Lee Ufan's art and its fascination.
The almost hypnotic repetition of marks that comprise From Line is created by the artist pressing a brush loaded with blue paint suspended in viscous glue directly onto the surface of the canvas, then repeating the process until there is barely any pigment left on the filaments of the brush. He then reloads the brush with fresh pigment, before repeating the process again and again until the entire canvas is covered with the delicate lapis blue marks. Though linear uniformity draws attention to the painting’s actual space, as the hazy pigment gently fades away the artist invites viewers to consider what comes after the end of the canvas as well. Ufan sees the pigment gradually becoming liberated from himself, fully exhaling space, and thus celebrating the reductive ideals of his philosophical home, the Japanese school of painting know as Mono-ha (School of Things). Mono-ha’s philosophical subscribers celebrate what the earth has given, rather than participating in the futility of new creation. Reflecting Mono-ha’s touches to earth, and harkening back to one of the movement’s seminal works, Nobuo Sekine's Phase-Mother Earth, is Ufan’s use of blue. Blue is most intimate with earth and virtue in the artist’s native Korean tradition, emanating hope, life, integrity and spirit. It is the thoughts derived from viewing the work which Ufan plans to emphasize, as the artist noted, "the ideal for a work of art is to be a 'place of nothingness’” (L. Ufan, The Art of Encounter, exh. cat., Lisson Gallery, London, 2004, n.p.).
This investigation into the concept of infinity is present throughout Lee’s oeuvre, reaches its zenith in a painting such as the present example. The blank canvas acts as infinite space for Lee to explore the concepts of “body” and “encounter,” both important in understanding the artist’s work. “Encounter” considers the relationship between oneself and others, while “body” or “bodilyness” examines the interconnectedness of the body, the mind, and the world. Lee, well versed in the Western thought and phenomenology of Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merlearu-Panty, developed his own theory that art should try to encounter what he deems “the other,” or “the world.” A canvas provides Lee with the opportunity to create an encounter with the world in relationship with others, rather than remain in his own isolated world. Lee’s minimal expression of brushstrokes creates another passageway for relating himself with the world and others, connecting nature with the artificial, and the made with the unmade.
Lee Ufan studied philosophy at Nihon University in Tokyo after deciding it was essential to his future artistic endeavors. This decision would prove indispensable as his philosophical training would go on to inform not only his art but also his views on abstraction in general throughout his life as an artist. After finishing his studies and starting to paint full-time, Ufan would go on to become a key theorist and establishing member of the Mono-ha, an avant-garde materials-based art movement in 1960s Japan and the first Japanese contemporary art movement to gain international recognition. Here Ufan further developed his views on abstraction and established his notable style of his future works. His vision of abstraction however, was vastly different from those coming from western artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Instead of catalyzing his abstraction through expression and emotion, Ufan and the Mono-ha practitioners focused on perception and the relationship with their materials.
By spreading the pigment from thick to thin with every stroke of his brush and using the entire canvas, Lee Ufan creates an infinite array of shades and figures within his never-ending composition. “One way of showing the idea of infinity in a picture is in the repetition of figures” he says. “As with living organisms, it is repetition of birth and death, death and birth, yet it must be sequenced so each movement is unique and separate. The organic device whereby each brushstroke, each figure is independent and mutually related makes a picture full of forces” (L. Ufan, quoted in an unpublished Board note presented to Tate Gallery Trustees, July 1997, Tate Artist Catalogue File, Lee Ufan, A21074). In From Point, Lee's thoughtful and philosophical outlook is transformed on the canvas, with the inevitable naturalness of water seeking its own channel, into pulsating rhythms that reach out to the viewer and communicate a state of mind. In this lies all the mystery of Lee Ufan's art and its fascination.