“About the Artist”

Rarely has a Korean artist been so unapologetically experimental or bold in pushing the boundaries of art as Seungteak Lee has, whose trailblazing career has left behind a body of work of unparalleled originality. Lee was born in 1932 in Gowon, Hamgyeongnam-do, in the northeastern Korean peninsula. Japan then ruled Korea, which opened to the West and had a head start in modernization. In 1945, after the Japanese retreat, Korea was divided at the 38th parallel, and Lee spent part of his childhood under the communist regime. In 1951, he crossed to the south during the January Fourth Retreat (Third Battle of Seoul), and in 1955, he set out on a path as an artist by enrolling in the College of Fine Arts at Hongik University. However, Lee was far from a novice to art. Back in North Korea, he was considered a prodigy who, while still in high school, was commissioned by Gowon County to sculpt a bust of Kim Il-Sung. He was exempted from military service for this sculpture, which was placed at the front entrance of the county office. At Hongik University, he entered works into the National Exhibition of Art as early as his sophomore year and participated in a string of monumental sculpture projects, including the MacArthur Statue, as a leading member.

After his enrollment in Hongik University, he was formally introduced to sculpture through classes on modern and contemporary Western sculptural traditions. However, he soon showed a strong inclination toward anti-sculptural and non-material works, rooted in the concrete reality of life in Korea and embodying a cultural anthropological view of the world. While still in college, Lee undertook a series of objects using warp weights or earthenware pottery. Starting in the early 1960s, he created installations and carried out performances using natural media that are of sparse materialities, such as wind, fire, and water, at the same time as experimenting with the “exteriority of art” by actively incorporating folk objects, games, and everyday practices and items into his projects. Meanwhile, since the 1970s, he has used documentary photography to rediscover and reinterpret his creative activities or worlds of man-made objects in open natural spaces. He has also made montages and collages with his photos or drawn or painted on them to create panoramas of man-made objects. The relationship between the natural and the man-made or between wilderness and civilization and the environment on planet Earth constitute central themes in Lee’s art, along with social and cultural issues such as the Korean Peninsula’s division, religion, and sexuality.

In his 30s, between the early 1960s and the early 1970s, Lee mostly carried out his experimental projects in collaboration with Shinsanghoe, Wonhynghoe, the Korean Contemporary Sculpture Society, and A.G. These groups left an indelible mark on the history of Korean contemporary art movements. However, even among his fellow artists with an avant-garde bent, Lee stood out for his exceedingly original and personal style and experimental radicalism. He has consistently refused to be locked up in a studio, gallery, or museum. Instead, Lee’s studio and exhibition venues have been natural areas around Seoul, such as Nanjido of the Hangang River or Bukhansan Mountain.

Lee held his first solo exhibition in 1971 when he turned 40. Since then, he has had 21 more solo exhibitions, including Seung-taek Lee: 50 Years of Experimental Art (1997) at Arko Art Center, Seung-taek Lee: Non-Material Work (2004) at the Museum for Independents & Alternatives, Nam June Paik Art Center Prize Winner’s Exhibition (2012), and Lee Seung Taek’s Non-Art: The Inversive Act (2020) at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. His works have also been shown in nearly 300 group exhibitions in Korea and around the world, of which the São Paulo Art Biennial is a prime example. He is the winner of the Gonggan Art Award, the Dong-A Art Award, the Nam June Paik Art Center Prize, the Kim Se-Choong Sculpture Award, and the 2000 Bogwan Order of Cultural Merit. His works are in the permanent collections of public and private museums in Korea and overseas, including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, the Seoul Olympic Museum of Art (SOMA), the Aomori Museum of Art in Japan, M+ in Hong Kong, and Tate Modern Museum in England.

‘Non-sculpture’ Art of Seung-taek Lee  

Lee Ihn-bum, 

Director of IBLee Institute, Former Professor of Visual Arts at Sangmyung University 

The goal of this essay is simple: to understand how Seung-taek Lee’s art has evolved over time using source materials available in art archives and the existing literature about his career and work. An artist as experimental and as brazenly avant-garde as Seung-taek Lee has been rarely, if ever, encountered throughout the history of Korean contemporary art. During the 1990’s, which was a time when ‘experiments’ were as such considered as something of historic value in the Korean art scene, the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation planned an annually recurring exhibition, titled “50 Years of Experimental Art.” The first installment of this exhibition series, “50 Years of Experimental Art: Seung-taek Lee Invitational Exhibition” (Sep. 12 – 24, 1997, Korea Culture and Arts Foundation Fine Arts Center), showcased the works of Seung-taek Lee, as an emphatic testament to his status as an avant-garde icon of the contemporary Korean art world.  

In 1955, Lee enrolled in the Department of Sculpture at the Hongik University College of Fine Arts. One year later, in 1956, he made his official debut by entering three pieces of his sculptures, including Delight(1956) [Plate 1], at the National Exhibition (Nov. 10 – 30, 1956, Gyeongbokgung Museum, current National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art). In 1958, he presented two other sculptures, History and Time (1958) [Plate 2] and Thinker (1958), at his graduation exhibition (Nov. 16 – 25, 1958, Gyeongbokgung Museum). Hence, although Lee started art school at the relatively late age of twenty-three, he made his debut more or less immediately thereafter. He was thus able to join the group of 1^st-generation modernists that emerged around the time of the inception of the Korean Republic. The first art colleges in Korea opened their doors after the liberation from Japan in 1945. Graduates of these schools therefore were only able to became full-fledged members of the Korean art scene toward the late 1950’s. These young artists rejected representational and figurative art, which was the dominant art form during the colonial period, and instead produced works that echoed the style and spirit of art informel which emerged as a worldwide trend during the post-World War II age. This newly established current later led to the movement known as “Korean-style modernist art.”  

Like his contemporaries, Seung-taek Lee was also born during the hardships of Japanese colonial rule at a moment when the shadow of colonization started to be cast over the Eastern hemisphere, and spent his childhood witnessing the Manchurian Incident, World War II and the Korean War that followed the division of North and South. Yet his personal experience, of having been born in Gowon, in the Hamgyeongnamdo province of North Korea, and living under a North Korean communist regime while flouting his talents in making and drawing traditional objects, then inevitably feeling to the South during the Korean war provide an inimitable backdrop to to his work, in terms of the destruction and confusion of social and material order he would have experienced between these acutely differing ideologies.  

Lee has kept a consistently ‘anti-sculpture’ stance for the past six decades since his debut. For him, art has always been something akin to an attitude of self-denial and a way of resisting all forms of authority. In pursuing what he calls “non-sculpture”,  Oscillating between a traditional world view or traditional view of nature and the everyday realities of industrial society, Lee has continuously attempting to overcome the bounds of art produced by Western modernity. His ‘non-sculpture’ art has taken various different forms including drawing, painting, objet, performance, installation and photography. The unique place Lee occupies in Korean contemporary art has been eloquently summed up by critics who have closely followed his career. Oh Kwang-su summarized his art as “the logic of self-reform,” while Yoon Woo-hak called his endeavor “a sculptural act which is not sculpture, which has an “inner openness” originating from the artist’s inner fire and temperament.” Meanwhile, Lee Yil underscored Lee’s relentless sculptural exploration of new expressive possibilities.  

Experimentality or avant-gardeness, however, fails to fully describe such a multilayered and multidimensional body of work as that produced by Seung-taek Lee under the title of “non-sculpture.” His art reveals the clash between traditional authority and avant-garde acts to subvert the existing order, between cultural, anthropological and historical systems of the world and Western ‘art,’ between objets and actions, between artificiality and naturalness, between subject and post-subject, as well as between modernity/pre-modernity and postmodernity. Over the years, his ‘non-sculpture’ art has been characterized in richly diverse ways, by researchers, critics and curators from all over the world, as an “art of dematerialization” (Oh Sang-gil), “escape” from Western modernism or formalism (Kim Chan-dong), “a world of primordial forces” (Kim Yung-hee), “use on vacation” (Joan Kee) or the “aesthetic of infraction” (Chung Yeon-shim). However, historical questions about his art, which, in my opinion, should precede aesthetic judgement or interpretation, such as why, when and how Lee came to embark on his ‘non-sculptural’ pursuit, still remain mostly unanswered.  

Lee’s art certainly did not happen outside a historical context. Therefore, this historical context can not be self-contained or seen as independent from Lee’s career. Needless to say, an artist’s career is historical by definition. Researching source materials and establishing causal relationships between various events of his life are the only way to reconstruct the history of his art, even if it may be a rather tedious task. This essay is aimed, on the one hand, at exploring future directions in archiving records on Lee’s art, based on the survey of source materials, and, on the other, at drawing up a chronological map, albeit a rough one, that is necessary to gain insights into his art – which I believe can help further the state of knowledge on the subject. This is not to say that his body of work can be neatly divided into different time periods, without causal entanglement complicating a sequential understanding. Notwithstanding, as I am reminded of Heinrich Wölfflin’s statement, “Not everything is possible at all times,” I propose to distinguish the following four periods in Lee’s artistic career and his body of work by paying particular attention to several of his solo shows:  

(1) ‘Sculpture’ and Anti-sculpture Experiments: 1955-1971 

In conjunction with actively embracing Western ‘sculpture,’ Lee created ‘anti-sculpture’ objets, installations and performance arts, using objects of cultural and anthropological significance drawn from the native folk culture of Korea, such as warp weights or earthenware pottery, materials that are representative of the industrialized age, such as wood sticks, glass, vinyl or plastic and galvanized steel, as well as intangible elements such as smoke, fire or wind for ‘formless sculptures.’  

(2) String-based Works, Questions about Being and Contingent Methods: 1972-1983 

Man-made objects loaded with cultural memories, such as nude sculptures, white porcelain, ancient books, contemporary books and banknotes, were bound together with natural objects like rocks or tree branches, using string, so as to emphatically manifest their being and as a mode of spatial ownership and intervention into the realm of nature.  

(3) A ‘Non-sculptural’ Worldview: 1984-early 1990’s 

Lee took on themes that are some of the fundamentals of human existence or critical social issues of his time, such as shamanistic life, fire and its festive and sacrificial anthropological role or self-immolation, environmental plight, the stand-off between the two Koreas, quasi-religious, idolatry-like deference to certain values and sexuality. Moving away from the focus on objets in the 1970’s, Lee turned to more diverse forms of art, including installation, land art, performance art and photography.  

(4) ‘Photo Pictures’: 1990’s and Thereafter  

‘Photo pictures,’ photo-based works realized with techniques like collage, montage, drawing, painting and studio photo shoots, portraying various scenes of life, with a strong emphasis on image.  

‘Sculpture’ and Anti-sculpture Experiments 

The young Lee’s imagination was captivated by Western ‘art,’ and more particularly by Western ‘sculpture.’ This is well attested to by his works from this period, such as the wood sculpture titled Mother and Child (1955), Delight, a sculpture featuring three female dancers, the sculptures shown in the 5^th National Exhibition, including Remaining Dream, Soldier (1956), History and Time, and the self-portrait sculpture Thinker, presented in his graduation exhibition at Hongik University.【주석1】 The artist’s keen interest in Western contemporary sculpture is also palpable in several volumes of sketchbooks from his college years. Just like for others of his generation, Western art was an ultimate fantasy for Lee. In this sense, it is not altogether surprising that Delight seems to have been directly influenced by the works of the American sculptor Leo Amino (1911-1989), and that Untitled (1938-1946) [Plate 3] and Rising to Action (1958) presented at the Anti-Communist Art Exhibition (Mar. 26 – Apr. 15, 1958, Anticommunist Exhibit Hall), were strongly reminiscent of Alberto Giacometti’s works. 

However, if there was one thing that set him clearly apart from his contemporaries, it was the fact that Western art was not the only be-all and end-all of his artistic endeavor or his only source of inspiration. Already in his Tale, Lee used elements inspired by traditional Korean totem poles, a subject matter inexplicable through the grammar of Western sculpture. He went yet further with Godret Stone (1960) [Plate 4], Tied Stone (1958) [Plate 5] and Bull’s Balls (1957) [Palte 6] Lee integrated unmodified everyday objects into his work, in a manner tantamount defiance against ‘sculpture.’ In this regard, History and Time, a work featured in his graduation exhibition, currently in the collection of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea  is particularly noteworthy. The crescent-shaped, oblong lump of plaster, hanging from the ceiling, is roughly painted in red and blue, then wound with barbed wire. This work, ostensibly echoing the style of art informel, then a synonym of the West, evokes, at the same time, the cultural memory of the ‘string’ that Lee used in his other works like Godret Stone and Bull’s Balls to wrap or tie an object. History and Time poignantly expresses the sorrow and grief of an artist of a divided country, from which the artist was forced to leave behind his mother.  

His homage to Western sculpture continued with Woman (1960), a work created shortly after his graduation from Hongik University. However, by then, Lee’s interest was already shifting towards experimenting with the limits of traditional Western ‘sculpture.’ This transition is visible, for example, in Torso (1962) [Plate 7] which featured in the 6^th Contemporary Artist Invitation Exhibition (Apr. 10 – May 7, 1962, Gyeongbokgung Museum). While superficially retaining characteristics of his earlier female nude, Woman, the gilt body wound with multiple layers of wire seems to challenge and disrupt the visual grammar of ‘sculpture’ rather than deferring to, or celebrating, it. The Buddhist sculptures he made during this period are no different. In the early1960’s, then a fledgling sculptor, Lee was fascinated by Onggi, earthenware jars. On the heels of his graduation, Lee started to learn pottery-making at a traditional Onggi workshop and set out to experiment with his newly-acquired skills. Sprout (1963) [Plate 8], a maimed jar with a sealed mouth, and Inspiration (1963), a plaster sculpture with an unusual earthenware-like texture, are fine cases in point. Around this time, Lee also put to test the various conventions of the genre ‘sculpture.’ In Untitled (1962) [Plate 9], he created a collage with photos of earthenware pottery, which was then suspended in mid-air as an objet, against the backdrop of a photo of the sky. Likewise, with works presented in the 2^ndWonhyeonghoe Exhibition (Nov. 10 – 27, 1964, Central Public Information Hall), such as Work Z-4 (1960) [Plate 10], Work Z-44 (1961)[Plate 11] and Work Z-444 (1964) [Plate 12], sculptures were either suspended in mid-air or hung on a wall, simultaneously flouting conventions and negating gravity, or were placed on the floor of the exhibition venue without a pedestal, so as to erase boundaries that separate art from surrounding ordinary objects. At a time when the so-called ‘Western complex’ and ‘novelty complex’ were the two most prevalent epidemics in the Korean art scene, Lee countered this trend by harking back to anthropological primordial experiences and turning to techniques used for coarse everyday pottery. This was not a retreat or escape into the past, but an active negation of ‘sculpture’ and an attempt to overcome and move beyond modern ‘sculpture’ by reaching out to new horizons.  

Lee also made headway in his continuous struggle to push against the limits of art by incorporating industrial objects into his work. In the mid-1960’s when the natural environment was undergoing rapid transformation by the accelerated industrialization, Lee experimented with sheer or transparent materials and non-sculpture techniques such as blowing glass in his Glass (1966) [Plate 13], as part of an effort to create objets with entirely new colors and forms. In Untitled (1967) [Plate 14], rope and plastic sheets were either wrapped or hung loosely around wooden sticks that had been left to dry against a wall. Plastic sheets and fabric emerged in Untitled (1967) as the only contributing elements to form and volume. Cuivre-1969 AB (1969) [Plate 15], presented at the 6^th Biennale de Paris des Jeunes (Sep. 24 – Nov. 1, 1969, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris), was a volumeless work realized using bent galvanized steel sheets. A vast array of ordinary objects were utilized in Lee’s experiments, allowing him to introduce new materials, shapes, textures, weights and colors. All of these objects, however, contributed to the singular goal, to reach new heights by challenging classical forms and disrupting the grammar of traditional sculpture.  

‘Anti-sculpture’ can be used as an apt description of the driving force behind Lee’s art in the 1960’s, during his thirties. However, his efforts during this era also included feats that surpassed such terms. His ‘formless sculpture’ began with drawings such as Smoke (1960) and The Burning Canvas Floating on the River (1964). The initial shock Lee received from seeing for the first time Giacometti’s volumeless sculptures, featuring tall and thin, stick-like human figures, eventually inspired him to go even further and create formless sculpture using airy(ephemeral) and intangible elements like sound, mist, fire and wind. Thus, his installation Wind Fence (1964) used sound, while Fire Ceremony (1967) dealt with fire. Here, fire served as the formless mediator between being and non-being. His experiments with the airy and formless continued with Wind (1970) [Plate 16], an installation presented at the Korea Contemporary Sculpture Association Founding Exhibition (Sep. 5 -10, 1969, Sinmun Hoegwan Art Gallery) and the style reached its peak during the 1970’s when he produced an important series of performances and installations, including Wind Play (1992) [Plate 17] which was performed at the banks of the Hangang River. Given his proclivities, it was not altogether unexpected that the Wind installation consisted of objects that are commonly found in seonangdang, the shrines to guardian gods in Korean villages, or pungeoje rituals, in which straw ropes, fabrics and flags are used by fishing communities to pray for a big catch. As for the Wind performance, it was hardly distinguishable from kite-flying and other similar folk games and performances. These objects and performances were naturally inspired from his own childhood memories from Gowon, a town at the southern tip of Baekdu Plateau. By harking back to his early experience of folk culture, Lee transformed his conceptual understanding of modernity regarding ‘sculpture,’ resting on a rigid dichotomy between subject and object, into a vivid vitality of energy. In this sense, his experiments with the ephemeral and intangible may be said to have occurred outside of the domain of modern ‘sculpture’ or ‘art.’  

Lee held these types of events alone or with one or two helpers, most often at quiet open-air spaces like the sandy shores of the Hangang River or Nanjido, the island in the Hangang estuary, frequented by few people. Such events were characteristically non-sculptural rather than anti-sculptural. This was a time when people had no clear notion of state institutions and only a vague idea of ‘art’. Art infrastructure was scarce, with art galleries and museums rare and few. It is hence worthwhile to question what being experimental or avant-garde in such an era would have signified as a separate discussion. Lee’s such activities mostly occurred outside the institutional boundaries of the art world, at the interstice between things and action, between art and everyday objects, and between Western art and folklore. Through this, Lee disrupted and upended the concept of Western art, which was worshipped at that time as an absolute ideal, thus taking on the role of an anarchist of art.  

Fortunately, however, Lee had like-minded fellow avant-garde artists from groups like Sinsanghoe (1962-1963), Wonhyeonghoe (1964), Korea Contemporary Sculpture Association (1969-1970) and the Korea Avant-garde Association (1969-1972). He was also granted the chance to show his works through the Contemporary Artists Exhibition (1964-1969), organized by the Chosun Iibo, and other similar feature exhibitions. Riding the wave of internationalization that swept the Korean art world around the time, Lee exhibited at the 6^th Biennale de Paris des Jeunes, EXPO ’70 (Mar. 15 – Sep. 13, 1970, Osaka, Japan) and the 11^th Sao Paolo Art Biennial (Sep. 4 – Nov. 15, 1971, Armando Arruda Pereira Pavilion), solidifying his standing. In his first solo show, held in late 1971 (Nov. 28 – Dec. 2, 1971, National Public Information Hall, Exhibition Room 3, Municipal Central Information Center), Lee showcased the outcomes of his various non-sculptural ventures of the 1960’s. Of the forty-five works on display, only the installation Wind (1971) [Plate 18] could be classified as sculpture. The remaining works were photos of his various objets, such as onggi, glass, plastic, wood and zinc-based objets, and installations and performances on airy motifs. These various attempts helped build the critical consensus that Lee’s sculptures were no longer ‘forms,’ but ‘states.’【주석2】

String-based Works, Questions about Being and Contigent Methods 

Lee’s first solo exhibition was both a turning point and a milestone in his artistic journey. The exhibition comprehensively summed up the trajectory of his work thus far, while also bringing light to his shifting interest toward dematerialized art forms regarding the airy and intangible.  

This is also what makes The Second Anatomy, Press(1971) [Plate 19], a female nude sculpture produced while being occupied with the Wind series, quite an intriguing piece. Why a nude sculpture? Could this be seen as a throwback to the values overruling the classical age of classical sculpture? This, however, was not the case. The viewer’s attention was intended to be primarily arrested by the string bound around the physical form at regular intervals, and by the dynamic tension thus produced by the action and reaction between these two entitities. Similar changes can be noted in the works shown at the Avant-Garde Association Exhibitions (hereinafter the “A.G. Exhibition”). In the case of Work (1970) [Plate 20] presented in the “A. G. Exhibition 1970: The Dynamic of Extension and Reduction” (May 1 – 7, 1970, Central Public Information Hall), Lee originally intended to install a stovepipe to experiment with form. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, Lee ended up simply wrapping the materials with a black plastic sheet, bundling up the whole thing and hanging this bundle on the wall. At the second A.G. exhibition, “’71-A.G.: Reality and Realization” (Dec. 6 – 20, 1971, Gyeongbokgung Museum), Lee installed items he had previously used in outdoor settings for Wind installations– such as long ropes with fabric pieces tied at regular intervals on the floor of the exhibition venue, giving it the new title, Rectification (1971) [Plate 21]. However, neither Untitled (or ‘Life and Death,’ 1973) [Plate 22], an installation of wind-themed items near a grave or mountain path, nor Wind, an indoor installation of stylized wind-themed items – plastic strings tied to a tree branch- exhibited the same kind of free and vital energy exuded by his previous dematerialized versions of Wind.  

What became the focal point around this time was string, which started to play the role of a transformative factor for his work. String was a prominent motif in Wind presented at the Contemporary Sculpture Invitation Show (Jun. 3 – 6, 1972, National Public Information Hall, Exhibition Room 4), featuring a string-based collage on a square panel, and Wind Work (1972) [Plate 23]. Although these are drawings made to visually capture wind, string, which was previously used only to tie or wrap things in installation or performance works based on warp weights, earthenware or wood sticks, came to occupy the center stage of this work. His string-based works evoke the cultural and anthropological energy of these objects, profoundly alluding to how these objects have become intertwined with life within human societies since the dawn of history. Meanwhile, the linear language of string adds to an exciting optical effect.  

The use of string brought about a methodological and rhetorical shift in Lee’s art. In this sense, string is significant as one of Lee’s key motifs from the 1970’s. Lee also used string to bind together white Joseon porcelain, another notable motif, which was evocative of the nationalist wave that took hold of Korea during the establishment of a modern democratic republic, and the question of cultural identity. String was also used to tie ancient books – as the physical embodiments of the profound nature of civilization - with other books and magazines that served as the chief vehicles of discourse among ruling powers. Canvases and picture frames, as both symbols and institutional markers used to identify art as art, were also included in the objects that were tied and wrapped with string. No objects bearing political, social, economic and cultural memories were spared, including banknotes, the physical form of money, nearly deified during the transition to capitalism and ruling as a supreme power to this day in everyday life in Korea. This effort is well exemplified in the works Tied White Porcelain (1975), Untitled (or ‘Tied Canvas’, 1975), Untitled (or Deconstruction of Bill, 1979) and Tied Book series (1975-1976).  

These string-bound objets allow the viewer, above all, an experience of the physical tension between the bound object and the act of binding. South Korea during the 1970’s presented a scene where the authoritarian Yusin Regime had brought about an overpowering sense of oppression within society. It was within this context that tension felt between the string and the bound man-made objects were inevitably perceived as a metaphor of political and social tension. Perhaps it was this aesthetic experience that led the transition towards posing the question about the relationship between the action of tying and the bound objects as a methodological and conceptual device.  

Interestingly, Lee won several art awards that were established during the mid-1970’s. His Tied Rock (1975) [Plate 24], entered into “Four Contemporary Sculptors: the 2^ndGonggan Grand Prix Exhibition” (Nov. 13 – 16, 1977, Gallery SPACE), claimed the Award of Excellence. With Tied Woman Body (mid-1970’s), presented at the 1^st Dong-A Festival of Fine Arts (Mar. 30 – Apr. 12, 1978, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art), Lee procured the Donga Fine Arts Award. Surprisingly, neither of these works dwelled on his previous preoccupation with man-made objects, but rather utilized natural stone and human figures. It seemed almost as if the Korean art scene had hosted a welcome reception for his choice of solid classical sculpture materials, such as stone and plaster, to reward this rebellious artist that had seemed so driven to explore uncharted territories. It must also be noted that neither of his works based on man-made objects evoking cultural memories were awarded, revealing a strong preference for neutral works based on natural stone or human figures. Nonetheless, it must be noted that there were interstices where Lee’s art in the 1970’s intersected with the conservative political and social atmosphere of the times as well as the chief interests of the contemporary domestic art scene.  

At any rate, there is no questioning the fact that this shift in Lee’s art occurred under the influence of the A. G. Group of which he was an active member, his experience of exhibiting overseas and popular international trends of this period, such as minimalism and Mono-Ha. Ironically, however, Lee’s involvement with the A. G. Group, founded to “explore and shape a new visual order in the Korean art scene which sorely lacks vision, through a strong avant-garde spirit, to contribute to the advancement of fine arts and culture,”【주석3】 and his encounter with overseas contemporary art had the paradoxical effect of suppressing his natural creative urges and provocative imagination, rather than nurturing his bold unconventional attitude and appetite for experimental art. In this regard, it is important to note how his string-based works set him apart from other Korean modernist artists whose art was forged under the heavy influence of Western minimalism and conceptual art; represented by the ‘Dansaekhwa’ (monochrome painting) group under the banner of ‘Korean-style modernism’ – a name that disturbingly echoed the Yusin-era slogan of ‘Korean-style democracy’ and pandered to the popular discourse of cultural identity- whose art was eminently uniform and monolithic.  

However, the most fundamental factor that distinguished Lee from these artists known as “Dansaek-pa” was his relentless sense of challenging all forms of authority and his continuous attempt at renewal. His confinement to indoor spaces while working with tied man-made objects was liberated to natural open-air settings with a material transition towards tied rocks. A number of photographic works based on his outdoor installations remain from the late 1970’s, in which he tentatively aimed to create performances concerning intervention of nature. Examples include Installation on the River (late 1970’s), Untitled (late 1970’s, an installation at a laver farm) and The Sound of Wind (late 1970’s). In these works, Lee revealed his desire to stake out a space of his own in a vast open stretch of wilderness by placing man-made objects that are tied or chained with string.  

‘Non-sculptural’ Worldview 

Lee’s production of string-based works continued to evolve well into the 1980’s. In his second solo show, “Seung-taek Lee Exhibition” (Jun. 5 – 11, 1981, Kwanhoon Gallery), string was again the central motif. This 1981 exhibition, held ten years after his first solo show, featured his tied works from the 1970’s, including white porcelains tied with string, tied bundles of  Gonggan(SPACE) magazines and banknotes. The exhibits also included some of his more recent visual experiments: Non-sculpture (1980) [Plate 25], a tree branch with a string dotted with knotted bunches of fabric, and Untitled (1980),【주석4】 a long rope with fabric and threaded knots at regular intervals that courses in a zigzag pattern across a wall of the exhibition. This piece with fabric pieces wound around a tree branch appears as though it is questioning the existence of the tree branch. Yet, this work seems to diverge greatly from his earlier string-based works in that it is void of representation and is free of all elements of contrivance. Here, the act of tying a string comes across simply as a way of participating in nature. As for Untitled (1980) [Plate 26], although the rope runs across a wall - a two-dimensional space-, the act of tying it into knots seems infinite, extending without bounds, both temporarily and spatially. At his second solo show, Lee used the term ‘non-sculpture’ to describe his endeavor, confiding that his artistic agenda toward ‘non-sculpture’ arose from tying and wrapping things with string, which had almost become his main trade. Saying that things and images had always “betrayed and disappointed him and angered him,” Lee explained that his string-based works were about “tying everything,” including “questions about being”; in other words, that his endeavor was an ascetic practice of tying “questions about being” and a prayer for the restoration of life.”【주석5】 

In his third solo show, “Seung-taek Lee Exhibition” (Sep. 29 – Oct. 5, 1982, Kwanhoon Gallery), held at the same venue in the following year, string remained a key motif. Yet, the focus of his work clearly shifted ‘objects’ to ‘spaces.’ With Untitled (1982) [Plate 27], the trajectory of the string extended further into the spatial domain than in its precursor Untitled, which remained a two-dimensional objet. A knotted string ran in all directions, through a neutral, three-dimensional space within the gallery, along a random and non-specified trajectory, as if to unleash the hidden breath and rhythm of nature inside an indoor space.【주석6】

Despite having explicitly declared his art as ‘non-sculpture’ in his second exhibition, it was after his fourth solo exhibition, “Seung-taek Lee Non-sculpture Show: Two-dimensional Paper” (Oct. 21 – 27, 1983, Total Museum of Contemporary Art), that Lee finally started to use the spectrum of non-sculpture to emerge into a world closer to reality. The presented works suspended on the walls, made of wood bound by string to bunched up paper, presented a scene where string was no longer the central motif. The focus was instead on the presence of two-dimensional art forms, in allowing them to exist within three-dimensional conditions, or whereby frames were used to denote a formal and institutional condition for paintings to exist in. For example, in Untitled (1983), canvas frames were disassembled and altered in a variety of forms, then recreated with papier-mâché and placed on the floor. This exhibition, in its entirety, can hence be seen as a comprehensive and critical review of his own previous string-based works based on a methodological and conceptual use of string, as well as of the modernist art which dominated Korean art discourse in the 1970’s. Without further ado, Lee seemed to be bursting into the realm of reality. The universe of shamanism emerged as the first secular theme Lee took on in the name of ‘non-sculpture.’ The departing point for this new adventure was his fifth solo exhibition, “Seung-taek Lee Non-sculpture Show” (Feb. 18 – 24, 1986, Hu Gallery). In this exhibition whose title again included the term ‘non-sculpture,’ primary-color fabrics in vivid red or blue, dyed paper and wood sticks were tied together using string, laid against or hung on the walls. The installation Untitled (1986)[Plates 28, 29] consisted of disparate artworks of various genres, including soft sculpture objets, solid sculptures and paintings, all laid on the floor. The space created as such was instantly submerged in a convincingly shamanistic realm. Shortly thereafter, on the occasion of the opening of the Gwacheon branch of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Lee carried out the installation Untitled- At Mt. Maisan (1986) [Plate 30] at the base of Cheonggyesan Mountain. The installation consisted of five stone graves. As rendered explicit by the title, this work was inspired by an ensemble of stone tombs in Maisan Mountain in Jeollabuk-do, believed to have been created a century earlier, as a ritualistic act.  

The 1980’s was a highly productive and prolific decade for Lee, who by then was in his 50’s. He produced frequent solo exhibitions once or even twice each year, with some of his most notable shows like “Seung-taek Lee Exhibition” (Mar. 24 – 29, 1986) at Gallery K in Tokyo and “Non-sculpture: Seung-taek Lee Exhibition” at Gallery P&P (Mar. 13 – 24, 1987) held during this period. These exhibitions can be collectively viewed under the overarching theme of ‘non-sculpture.’ The meaning of ‘non-sculpture’ also became clearer with the exhibition at Gallery P&P. Lee defined it as an “attempt to break away from the art of the past,” as an “anti-conceptual” gesture, to “free oneself from the existing notion of sculpture” and “experiment with materials.”【주석7】 His eighth solo show held in the following year, “Seung-taek Lee Exhibition” (Part I: May 18 – 24, 1988, Part II: May 24- 31, 1988, Kwanhoon Gallery), consisted of two parts. Part I was called “A Place of Thought,” and Part II “Chuijeon (‘Exhibition of accomplishments’). Part I featured works like Drawing Wave on the Sand (1987-1988) [Plate 31] and A Drawing on Sand (1986) [Plate 32], in which he explored ways of intervening with nature through artistic actions. Meanwhile, in Part II, he reintroduced the theme “Fire ceremony,” a sacrifice by fire, into the themes of the ephemeral and non-material, which he had touched upon in his thirties. Around the same time, he carried out an outdoor sculpture project called Land Wearing Roof Tiles (1988) [Plate 33] in the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seoul. In this project, in a quintessentially traditional style, a life-size tiled roof was placed on the grounds of the park, crafted with standard roofing techniques and materials. These works from the late 1980’s are strongly reminiscent of Lee’s earlier culturally and anthropologically-driven objets and performances, based on folk items and folklore themes, almost to the point of suggesting a revival of the passion that dominated his youth.  

In 1989, Lee held two solo shows, “Seung-taek Lee Exhibition” (Mar. 2 – 15, 1989) at Noksaek Gallery and “Seung-taek Lee Self-burning Art Show” (Oct. 20 – 30, 1989) at the Total Museum of Contemporary Art in Jangheung and Nanjido Island. Through these two shows, Lee’s ‘non-sculptural’ world view came to a climax. At the Noksaek Gallery, Lee explored the possibility of reconciliation between life and an emotional world view created through the various forms and languages of art, including the spatial relationship between two-dimensional and three-dimensional arts. The “Self-burning Performance Art” at the Total Museum of Contemporary Art, was held in the presence of a small number of art critics and art professionals. Over the course of twelve days, Lee crafted and subsequently burnt a variety of sculptures, including self-portrait sculptures. By turning to the culturally significant act of self-burning in Self-Burning Performance (or Burning Clouds, 1989) [Plate 34] and Self-Burning Performance (1989) [Plate 35], Lee attempted to reach beyond the dichotomy of being and non-being, with regard to both human beings and art as a deified form of human existence. This exhibition also seemed to have opened the gates to Lee’s unquenchable thirst for life within the real world. With the Okpo Daewoo Shipbuilding Yard Project (1990) [Plates 36, 37], from the following year, Lee visited a site that is a major symbol of the Korean industrialization process to counter the plight of the environment caused by industrial waste and abandoned industrial sites. He further took on many other compelling and spirited issues of his time like the phenomenon of quasi-religious acquiescence to dogmatic values, taboos surrounding human sexuality and the realities of the divided Korea in a variety of ‘non-sculpture’ projects.【주석8】 

‘Photo Pictures’ (1990’s and thereafter)  

Lee’s understanding of time and space during the 1980’s and his world view during this decade can also be seen in the performance and photographic work of The Earth Performance (1989) [Plate 38]. Photography had always served as an important medium for Lee, particularly for its ability to record objects and events, as his work had often risen from an environment where modernity co-existed with older times and spaces, for whom the boundaries were at best blurry between performances or installations and objets, between things and actions and between being and non-being. Photography has since rose in prominence as a core medium for his work, regardless of this function, as Lee entered into his sixties.  

Some headway was made in Korean democracy during the 1980’s, with the Presidential election system becoming reinstated to the direct vote system of the pre-Yusin era after the civil uprising in June 1987. The 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Olympic Games were hosted successively in Seoul, placing South Korea into a position of prominence within international society. Around this time, Lee’s art underwent yet another turn of profound change. His exhibition at Hanseon Gallery (Aug. 23 – Sep. 3, 1991), titled Photographs, Paints & Objects, was held during the Cold War Détente, coinciding with the fall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the neo-liberalist world order. The transformation of Lee’s art was palpable in this exhibition, which marked his eleventh solo show. Photographs were exhibited at the scale of 116x83cm, the largest possible dimension for printing technologies at that time. The photography used to record Lee’s performances, resulting in works like Untitled (or ‘burning phallus’, 1991) [Plate 39], a photographic image of a phallus in flame, and A Drawing on Sand (1987-1988/1991) and Self Burning Performance (1989/1990’s) are highly informative of the role of this medium in Lee’s work. Moving beyond the realm of simply providing a veritable record of pre-existing events, Lee would employ a variety of techniques to artfully transform the photos, thereafter proceeding with an extensive process of manipulation, in which a pre-conceived and pre-elaborated idea would undergo relentless development until it matched the final vision of the artist. Lee went to great lengths to explore innovative ways to approach this pictorial turn in his art. The images were drawn or painted on, collaged as a backdrop of another photo or created into skillful montages, ultimately incorporating the images with objet, installation or performance, and at times even employing studio settings. His photographic works since the 1990’s manifest themselves with a strong pictorial presence, as much as, or more so, than any other genre he has previously employed. 

In this sense, one could argue that the term ‘photo pictures’ provides a fair description of Lee’s later works, produced during his sixties and thereafter. This latest turn in his art has certainly profited from the latest advancements in photographic and digital printing technologies, allowing Lee to print images at an even larger scale. As an artist who has undergone continuous reinvention, it could be said that ‘photo pictures’ were a natural calling for the artist, as demonstrated in “50 Years of Experimental Art: Seung-taek Lee Invitational Exhibition”, other large-scale invitational exhibitions at museums and participation at international biennales, such as the Busan International Biennale and Gwangju International Biennale, and the conditions of the postmodern environment he has embraced today, which relentlessly calls for the creation of new narratives and images.  

While Green Campaign(1996) and Water of Green (1996) [Plate 40] read as powerful protests against environmental degradation caused by industrialization or against the excessive idolization of religion, yet these protests are more prone to taking place through image, in a photographic form, rather than through direct action. Green Campaign (1996), in which Lee is demonstrates a performance in which he is applying layers of green paint, is depicted as a documentary in the format of a report. Yet, in reality, the piece is a staged photo created by placing a scaled-down photograph of the artists on a miniature model set. As an extension of this work, Lee has continued with this environmental theme in Suffering of Green (1996) [Plate 41], a large painting installation presented at “The Origin and Myths of Fire: Korea-China-Japan Contemporary Art Exhibition" (Oct. 12 - Dec. 8, 1996) organized by the Saitama Museum of Modern Art in Japan.  

It must be also noted that ‘photo pictures’ were not a new oeuvre for Lee in the 1990’s. Some of his works from the early 1960’s like the earthenware objet suspended in mid-air against the photograph of the sky (Untitled, 1962) were, in fact, ‘photo pictures.’ Also in ensuing periods, Lee frequently drew or painted over photographs documenting his installations or would otherwise purposefully modify them to convey his opinion or artistic intent. However, the use of photographs as a central medium, as was the case with The Earth Performance, rather than as photographic record of his installation works, began in earnest in the 1990’s. Among his most favored performance and installation projects from the late 1990’s, Lee was often more interested in the effect the photos of performances or objets would produce than the performances or objets themselves. Photos were also important props in his performances at times serving as the main motif. In this sense, works like New Millennium Toast Performance (2000) [Plate 42] or B-boy Festival Performance (2011) [Plate 43], carried out at the B-Boy Art Theater during the Korea Experimental Arts Festival, are rather distinct from his earlier performances that largely dealt with connecting to, or intervening with, nature. As in the case of Untitled (photo installation, 2008) [Plate 44], an objet photograph presented at the Busan Biennale, Lee does not hesitate to place photos on the floor or walls of an exhibition venue, in whatever manner he sees fit, sometimes for a trompe l’oeil effect, as a means to communicate a visual message, to provide entertainment. At times, Lee’s images create such a sense of immersion that it becomes difficult to differentiating his photo-based works from purely visual spectacle or picturesque effect, to the point that it is inconceivable to think that the artist originated from the realm of sculpture– despite his declared intention to create ‘non-sculptures’.