Thought Is a Form of Visual Expression. LEE UFAN in conversation with Jonathan Goodman.

As well as being a sculptor, painter, and installation artist, and a founder of the important early contemporary art movement Mono-ha in Japan, the Korean-born Lee Ufan is a noted writer who studied philosophy in college. For Lee, more than for many artists, art is a form of thinking–even though he denies so in this interview! His often simple (never simplistic) efforts link him in some ways to American minimalism; he quotes the famous minimalist Donald Judd in his answers to my questions. As an originator of the Mono-ha movement, Lee developed an esthetic that led him away from artifice toward the presentation–the acceptance–of the object as it was. Boulders surrounded by the simplest of accompaniments, say a flat piece of metal, seem to contain for him an answer to ideas about the innate integrity of the object, especially when it has been stripped of all embellishment.

Lee is an artist whose work could not have existed without his thinking long and hard about the ideas that shaped them. At the same time, no art movement exists by itself–Lee makes mention of the American minimalists, such as Judd, as a way of contextualizing his drive toward a directness in which the artist sets the object free of all context, even the thought that may have accompanied its origins. Unlike American minimalism, which has roots in industry and a capital economy, Lee’s work is closer to nature and to a philosophy in which the object rather than the artist speaks. In his comments here, Lee refuses to support an egoless predilection for the object. Yet it is possible to mention the quiet influence of Buddhism in his arthere, in which the self is evaded through its merger with things that are free of consciousness. That is the key, perhaps, to Lee’s remarkable achievement, in which objects and images seem to have come into existence as examples of unattached existence: pure thought.

Jonathan Goodman: You were born in Korea in 1936 but moved to Japan in 1956, eventually graduating with a degree in philosophy there from Nihon University. Why did you make the move? Is philosophy just as compelling for you as making visual art?

Lee Ufan: I visited Japan to deliver medicine to my sick uncle. He suggested that I stay in Japan to study. As a fan of literature, I thought it would provide a good opportunity for me to read books and learn philosophy to enrich my thoughts. Visual art requires both wide and deep thoughts.

JG: In 1969, you became a founder and leader of the Mono-ha school in Japan, arguably its most important postwar movement in the country. What kind of ideas did you invest in the Mono-ha movement? What is important about the movement in comparison to other movements of the time, East and West?

LU: Like France, where a societal revolution occurred in May 1968, Japan was undergoing a societal transformation back then. The modernism based on the idea of ego was shattered. It was time to seek a conversation with the exterior or the other. In this new era, artists were trying to avoid expressing oneself without boundaries and instead represent a new relationship with something they did not create. Artists in the West attempted to deny the conventional content or reinterpret history. On the other hands, Japanese artists preferred extremely simple and phenomenal expressions. For example, I intentionally dropped a boulder on a glass pane so it created cracks.

JG: Maybe it is more important to emphasize the rejection of Western values, including the expression of the ego, that is part of the Mono-ha esthetic–even if the work can sometimes seem like it is minimalist in nature. Is this rejection in regard to the Western ego a central part of Mono-ha thought?

LU: Mono-ha does not reject the expression of the self. Rather, it allows the expression of both the self and the exterior. To create a relationship between the self and the other or the exterior, the self has to be limited to a certain extent. This limitation applies to the other or the exterior as well. An artist’s expression is based on such a mutual regulation. Mono-ha is not against the West. It is against the sum or the almighty of modern humanity. Mono-ha artists sought a more open expression in relationships with the exterior.

JG: Some of the critics writing about your work have characterized it as “minimalist.” Is this in fact correct? How does the Mono-ha movement reflect international minimalism?

LU: My works look minimalistic, indeed. The American minimalist artist Donald Judd remarked that his work is nothing other than itself. In contrast, my work is something other than itself. I create a simple work to express its neutrality as well as its essential and lofty relationships with the surrounding space.

JG: Writing is an important part of your artistic output. How does writing connect with your visual work?

LU: There is no direct relationship between my writing and visual art. I do not express the thoughts that I obtained from my writing in my art. However, writing helps me organize thoughts and identify any issues in my expressions. Above all, writing has the open space of its own.

JG: Some of your works are starkly simple: a boulder by itself. Why do you create such unembellished art? What can be gained by simply placing a stone on the floor? Does its existence indicate your penchant for transparency of purpose in art?

LU: In modernism, only something that is made is valuable. Such excess of thoughts is attributable to the limit of today’s civilization. I focus on understanding what is not made or what is natural and value my relationship with it. As a result, my expression is based on the relationship between what I made and what I didn’t. Such an idea, in its extreme, sometimes results in the agreement between what I made and what I didn’t. Other times, it results in what is minimally made. That is when the maximal expression that transcends myself occurs. Art is not about creation. It is about perceiving a phenomenon.

JG: Your sculptures are sometimes public, taking place outside. What is the purpose of public art? How does your own work address public art?

LU: I am not interested in public art or mass art. Still, my artworks are often placed in a public or an outdoor space. In such cases, I allow people to encounter the space that my art opens up rather than making them see my art.

JG: In a recent show in New York, you exhibited your lozenge paintings–images of relatively narrow blue and orange/red stripes, edged on one side by black. What is the meaning of these paintings? Are they purely abstract, or do they refer to a particular idea you have in mind?

LU: It is hard to tell whether my paintings are abstract or figurative. In my early career as an artist, I had drawn multiple dots and lines in the 1970s and later switched to a big stroke, which was the only change in my painting style. In the beginning, time elements were prominent. Later, I drew a big stroke and left the surrounding space on the canvas untouched, which resulted in the paintings that focus on space.

JG: Can you name three artists who currently mean a lot to you? They can come from anywhere.

LU: Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, and Gerhard Richter.

JG: Is there a great divide now between Asian and Western art? If so, why? Or are we succumbing to an internationalism in which everything is mixed? Is this good for contemporary art?

LU: Nowadays, it is meaningless to distinguish between Asia and the West. It is important to go beyond Artificial Intelligence, a collection of enormous knowledge, to rediscover the body (as it exists in nature) and seek how to express more openly our relations with the body.

JG: At this point in time, is the Mono-Ha movement to be considered a historical vision of the recent past? Is it a piece of history? If this is true, what is its historical meaning?

LU: When Mono-ha emerged, it was criticized as being not historical. In retrospect, it was a time when the existing way of expression came to an end, meaning that it was historical, indeed. From a bigger perspective, the 1970s saw disruptions across the world, leading to a new beginning.

JG: How would you like to participate in art in the next few years of your career?

LU: These days, I feel weaker than before. Still, I want to continue my work as an artist for the next three years or so. An artist should not come up with ideas related to production or consumption nor be influenced by knowledge or information. An artist should focus on detecting something unknown in a dialogue with the universe or the nature.