Dialogue

A white canvas features two brushstrokes: two squares of blue-grey shading that reveal a precise and intense movement. In his Dialogue series, Lee Ufan marks his canvases placed on the ground with just one brush stroke of oil paint mixed with a natural pigment. His slow gesture goes hand in hand with the complete control of his breath and body movements.

The artist, poet and philosopher Lee Ufan, who lives between Korea, Japan, and France, has always placed the concept of “resonance” (yôhaku) at the centre of his practice. As he explains, “The space of resonance is not the void. It is an open field of forces where action, things, and space resonate. It is the struggle between creating or not creating; it is the world of a kind of contradiction rich in change and suggestion. The space of resonance thus exceeds objects or words; it makes men breathe the infinite and leads them to silence.” In Dialogue, the sense of resonance is expressed in the balance between the canvas’ painted and empty areas.

The Pinault Collection showed this work for the first at the Icones exhibition at Punta della Dogana in Venice in 2023