ART CITIES:N.York-Lee Ufan
In the late 1960s and the 1970s Lee Ufan was involved in the Japanese artistic movement Mono-ha and became its spokesman. Using raw and often industrial materials such as steel or iron and found natural objects such as stones, his sculptural works are centred on the essential character and presence of their materials and their interconnections.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: DIA Art Foundation Archive
Five early sculptures by Lee Ufan are exhibited at Dia Art Foundation. The exhibition features five large-scale works, including three recently acquired installations “Relatum (formerly System)” (1969), “Relatum (formerly Language” (1971), and “Relatum” (1974), alongside several important loans. Each of these works demonstrate the artist’s engagement with materiality of objects in space, and the dynamics of an immersive experience for the viewer. The reduced, purist language of “Relatum” and its concentration on form and material are representative of Lee Ufan’s sculptural works. Mono-ha emerged in Tokyo as a loosely associated group of young artists in the late 1960s. The group rejected traditional representational art making, which they viewed as obsolete in an increasingly industrialized and technologically advanced world. Instead, artists associated with Mono-ha explored the properties of how different materials impact their environment. Aiming to overcome the hierarchy among the artist, the viewer, and the objects on view, Mono-ha artists arranged distinct materials in spontaneous-yet-controlled relations that highlight both the internal properties and the external forces that act upon these “things” as they come together. Starting in 1969, Lee developed an ongoing sculptural practice that addressed these ideas in site-responsive installations of natural and industrial objects. In 1972 he changed the titles of the works that he had made up to that point to “Relatum”, an impulse that can be compared to the frequent use of “untitled” by American Minimal artists. As Lee Ufan later explained: “A work of art, rather than being a self-complete, independent entity, has a resonant relationship with the outside. It exists simultaneously together with the world that is and is not, i.e. a relatum”. The use of the Latin term “relatum, which is used, for example in works by philosopher Martin Heidegger also illustrates Lee’s interest in philosophy. “Relatum (formerly System” (1969), one of Lee’s earliest Mono-ha sculptures, is composed of six steel plates that are bent at 90° angles and positioned evocatively in relationship to the gallery’s architecture. “Relatum (formerly Language)” (1971), by contrast, juxtaposes two diametrically opposite materials. Seven large boulders rest on an equal number of thick, soft cushions. The gravitational pull of the rocks animates the responsive or adaptive nature of the underlying cushion by compression. One of the defining concepts for Mono-ha was the connection between seemingly unrelated materials, often explored through acts of suspense. “Relatum” (1974) demonstrates Ufan’s engagement with this idea—a long wooden beam is precariously hung by rope above a steel plate, itself held up by a group of pebbles on the floor. Complementing these works from Dia’s permanent collection will be two works on loan. “Relatum” (1974/2011) uses a steel rod, delicately balanced on a small stone, as a circumference. The arc of the rod’s movement is traced in charcoal against the gallery wall. “Relatum (Iron Field)” (1969) consists of a large-scale bed of sand, displaced into the gallery, which supports a field of vertically inserted steel rods. The work exemplifies Lee’s use of raw, natural, and industrial materials, and the simultaneous international concerns about Land art.
Info: DIA Art Foundation, Dia:Beacon, 3 Beekman Street, Beacon, New York, Duration 5/5/19-5/5/21, Days & Hours: January–March & : Fri-Mon 11:00-16:00, April–October: Thu-Mon 11:00-18:00, November–December: Thu-Mon 11:00-16:00, www.diaart.org
