Lee Ufan

Galerie Zern, Aulendorf
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in the 1990s

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly brighter and the red tends slightly more towards orange in the original. Condition: This work is in good condition. There is evidence of wear and rubbing to the surface in places, notably towards the horizontal edges, with an associated pinhead-sized speck of loss towards the upper edge approximately 30 cm from the upper left corner. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
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Commanding the canvas surface with dynamic brushstrokes that culminate in a staccato crescendo of movement, Lee Ufan’s From Line No. 215 masterfully stages the artist’s ability to invoke time and physicality in an idiosyncratic gestural act of painting. In particular, in the present composition, the exuberance of various short brushstrokes in uneven alignments accentuates the notions of simultaneity and concurrence, both in a space and time dimension. The resulting depth and multiplicity of pictorial compositions resonate with Lee’s prime concern to create a tension between action and serenity through the juxtaposition of painted marks and areas of empty space, alluding to a co-existence of dualities that are perfectly balanced within the picture plane. Conceived in a striking palette of blazing and sensuous coral, a colour evoking the essence of the earth that complements Lee’s other symbolic colour blue, a reference to the infinity of the sky, the present work is not only exceptional in its unusually vibrant composition but also unites the artist’s refined abstraction with ideas of Eastern symbolism.
Dating from the very beginnings of Lee’s seminal From Line series, which was first exhibited in 1973 and would preoccupy the artist for the following ten years, the present work displays perfect symmetry along the upper limits of the canvas while the luminous cantaloupe strokes gradually disperse into a symphony of sequential swathes akin to cascades of colour pouring down, growing progressively more irregular to open up empty spaces of pictorial serenity towards the bottom edge. By placing his canvas on the floor and painting with his entire body, an intimate relationship is established between the painter and his subject that accentuates both the performative aspect as well as the process-based nature of these paintings. The material concordance of paint and gesture echoes Lee’s investigation into visible and perceived movement in which the organic, fluid movements of the paintbrush become almost calligraphic in nature. Art historian Joan Kee has linked Lee’s creation of images from this particular series to his interest in munjado, a traditional Korean style of rendering Chinese characters in which brush strokes are replaced with representational paintings. According to Kee, munjado “insists upon its status as a painting, but one that erases the semantic and referential capacity of even words and characters” (Joan Kee, ‘Points, Lines, Encounters: The World According to Lee Ufan’, Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 31, No. 3, 2008, p. 420).
Lee’s emphasis on raw, mineral colour resonates with the Japanese avant-garde movement Mono-ha (‘School of Things’), which emerged in the mid-1960s and of which Lee was a leading proponent, while the abstract composition foregrounds the purist aesthetics of the Korean monochrome painting movement Dansaekhwa. For his paint, Lee combines nikawa (animal-skin glue) with ground mineral pigment, a mixture that recalls the materials used in traditional Japanese Nihonga painting, thereby bridging the contemporary abstract apparition of his paintings with the strong influence of the calligraphic legacy in Eastern art. In his essay "Using a Brush" from 1975, Lee reflected on these various influences on his oeuvre: "The scholars of East Asia have thought with the brush for centuries, using it both for writing and painting. The object before the eyes and the image in the mind are all constructed of points and lines, and expressed in rhythm with the rising and falling of the breath. Because of this, the viewer... can observe the dynamic relationship between the painting and the canvas, the condition of the painter's body, the movement of his heart, his character and the atmosphere of the age" (Jean Fischer, Ed., Lee Ufan: The Art of Encounter, Cologne 2008, p. 25).