Lee Ufan Venice Retrospective
Korean artist Lee Ufan is set for a major retrospective as part of the 2026 Venice Biennale's official collateral events. The exhibition promises a comprehensive look at Lee's influential career bridging Eastern and Western philosophies through minimalist sculptures and meditative paintings. This cements Lee's legacy as one of the most significant voices in postwar abstraction and conceptual art.
The exhibition will be held at the San Marco Art Centre, taking over eight galleries in the historic Procuratie in Piazza San Marco. It is curated by Jessica Morgan, the director of the New York-based Dia Art Foundation, which is presenting the show. This career-spanning exhibition, marking the artist's 90th birthday, will feature a new site-specific installation alongside historical paintings and large-scale sculptures. Concurrently, Dia Beacon in New York will unveil a new display of Lee's works, celebrating a major donation of his paintings to the foundation. Lee was a foundational figure in the avant-garde Mono-ha (School of Things) movement in Japan during the 1960s. Mono-ha rejected Western ideas of representation, instead focusing on the relationships between natural and industrial materials like stone, steel, and glass. He was also a central proponent of the Korean Dansaekhwa (monochrome painting) movement that emerged in the 1970s. This style emphasized simplicity and meditative, repetitive gestures, as seen in Lee's renowned "From Point" and "From Line" series of paintings. While this is a significant presence at the Biennale, Lee has a history with the prestigious event, having had a solo exhibition titled "Resonance" at the 2007 Venice Biennale. His work was also introduced to a European audience at the 1971 Paris Biennale. The artist's influence has been recognized with major retrospectives at institutions like the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Centre Pompidou-Metz, and the National Art Center in Tokyo. In 2010, the Lee Ufan Museum, designed by architect Tadao Ando, opened at the Benesse Art Site in Naoshima, Japan.
