Lee Ufan is a major proponent of the Avant-Garde artistic movement called Mono-ha (School of Things) with Nobuo Sekine in the late 1960s. This artistic movement focuses on the relationships of materials and perceptions rather than on expression or intervention. Lee’s art process and materials consist of unconventional ideas and anti-authoritarian concepts.

His series From Line and From Point, begun in the early 1970s, connected him to many of the ideas in Dansaekhwa. Lee explored themes of gesture and the connection between mark making and the medium of paint itself. This interest was grounded in the tradition of calligraphy, which involved a discipline of repeatedly drawing single lines, and frames the artist’s profound investigation of the act of painting. In the From Winds series, the gradual unloading of the brush visible in the blue marks, merging into immateriality in some areas of the canvas, is carefully controlled by the artist, who regulates his breathing when working. This painting is one of many works by Lee that explore the theme of infinity.

Lee’s work has been featured in hundreds of solo and group exhibitions including Pompidou Metz, France (2019); Serpentine Galleries, London, UK (2018); Palace of Versailles, France (2014); Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA (2011); the Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan (2005); the Samsung Museum of Modern Art, Seoul, South Korea (2003); the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, France (1997); and the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea (1994). He was awarded the Praemium Imperiale for painting in 2001 and the UNESCO Prize in 2000. In 2010 the Lee Ufan Museum, designed by Tadao Ando, opened at Benesse Art Site, Naoshima, Japan.