Dialogue
2017
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
227.0 × 181.9 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated by Andrew and Judy Rogers and Professor AGL Shaw AO Bequest, 2020
© Lee Ufan, courtesy The Pace Gallery, New York
Gallery location
Level 1, NGV International
About this work
Born in Kyongsan-namdo, Korea, Lee Fan emerged in the late 1960s as a major proponent of the avant-garde Mono-ha (Object School) group, Japan’s first contemporary art movement to gain international recognition. He follows the Zen Buddhist practice of painting brushstrokes in a form of meditation representing energy and realisation. Produced by inhaling and painting a single brushstroke with each breath, the single stroke and its power to represent everything, and yet nothing, has been a central theme in Lee’s career since his first solo exhibition in Tokyo in 1967.
Lee’s Dialogue series consists of what appears to be a huge single brushstroke. However, when viewed up close, it becomes evident it is not one single stroke but many thin brushstrokes, each painted numerous times against each other. Like Zen philosophy, this process embodies the universe and the void - a representation of life.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Paris, France
Inscription
inscribed (vertically) in orange paint on outside edge l.r.: L. Ufan ’17 (upward arrow)
inscribed in fibre-tipped pen on reverse u.r.: Dialogue / 2017 / Leeufan
Accession Number
2020.9
Department
Contemporary Art