Work of Lee Ufan, a world-renowned artist, was established at Korea University Business School

First among univeristies to install work of Lee Ufan : [Relatum - The Location]

KUBS(Dean=Johngseok Bae) held the installation ceremony of the work of world-renowned artist Lee Ufan(86), [Relatum – The Location](‘Relatum – The Location’ from below) on May 17th(Tue) at 3 p.m..

With his philosophical paintings of dots and lines, Mr.Lee greatly influenced Korean and Japanese contemporary art and has become one of the most renowned artists in the world, placed his new work of ‘Relatum – The Location’ consisting of a 1m 40cm high natural stone and a mirror stainless steel plate measuring 4m and 3m, respectively, high up on the Business School campus.

Lee Ufan's work ‘Relatum – The Location’, consists of a form in which a man-made artifact, iron plate, and a stone made by nature, meet through the artist's mediation and talk about mutual ontological relations. For the production of the work, Lee Ufan visited the school's campus in the second half of last year and decided on the concept of the work after four to five months of planning. It is a rare case in Korean universities to have proposed and arranged new works of art by world masters instead of installing commemorative sculptures such as statues.

Through the installation of this work, the business university expects students to increase their social and artistic imagination, create new ideas and knowledge with social influence, and foster social leaders who will change the world.

The installation event of Work of Lee Ufan consisted of 2 parts, the academic event of Lee Ufan’s art theory in the first part and the unveiling ceremony in the second part. 

The first part of the art theory academic event, titled "Life and Art of Lee Ufan," consisted of a lecture by Professor Lee Yong-woo, a chair professor at Tongji University in Shanghai, and a talk with Seo Jin-seok, director of the Ulsan Museum of Art.

Professor Lee Yong-woo explained the significance of Lee Ufan's work, saying, "The core of Lee Ufan's aesthetics is to rebel against the existing artistic concepts and pay attention to the relationship, and sense of location between art and the outside world." He explained, "The ‘Relatum’ exists to induce discussion of problems of political, social, and medical discourse that can arise by the juxtaposition of stone next to iron, one natural and the other not and manufactured, the non-industrial and industrial-social next to each other." He then said, "’Relatum’ gives the feeling of a large stone floating on the lawn, and the clouds, sky, and buildings around it are reflected in the mirror," adding, "It is a work that opens a new place by looking at the clouds and sky symbolizing the non-ordinary universe in the mirror on the lawn symbolizing the ordinary."

 Afterwards, a conversation was held with Professor Lee Yong-woo and Seo Jin-seok, director of the Ulsan Museum of Art. The discussion was conducted on five topics which could further enhance understanding of the work: ‘the Lee Ufan’s Art and Monoha Movement’, ‘the 1968 Intellectual Revolution’, ‘Monoha and Arte Povera’, ‘Art and Materialism’, and ‘the Reaction to Relatum and Relational Aesthetics.’

Participants had time to share the meaning of the exhibition through explanations and Q&A sessions using various perspectives such as music, religion, and art history. Through lectures and conversations held before the unveiling ceremony of the work, the event ended successfully by once again presenting the goal of Korea University's business school to add artistic sensibility to the academic arena.

In the second part, President of KU, Chung Jin-taek, Dean of Business School, Bae Johngseok, and Professor Lee Yong-woo attended the event to unveil the work after watching the video message sent by the artist Lee Ufan.

Through the video message, Lee Ufan talked about the meaning of his work saying, "My work is so simple that it can be called bland. I only used a large natural stone and a stainless steel plate grated to the level of a mirror, and a stone on top of it, but I think my work opens a chapter where through this simple encounter and combination the universal glimmer of one moment that we do not get to feel in our everyday lives is captured and becomes common.”

Also, artist Lee Ufan said, "Artists cannot stop wars or make food. But in our lives, we see beautiful flowers for a moment, we see cups with glittering sunlight, we drink delicious water, and we feel like we can connect to nature from the bottom of the human body. I think art is inseparable from human life because I think it is the unique character and specialty of art that creates a small opportunity to enrich and reflect on human life by stopping for a moment and reliving that feeling," emphasizing the importance of art.

Lee Ufan, a living history of Korean contemporary art, recently opened a permanent exhibition hall, Lee Ufan Arles, at Otel de Vernon, France. He is a representative artist who led the Mono-ha movement that rejects the reproducibility of images and interprets things as they are, paying attention to the horizontal and equal relationship between the work, the place it is placed, and the audience looking at it, and is loved by many domestic and foreign audiences through the series of sculptures ‘Relatum’.