Seung-taek Lee - Lévy Gorvy
  • Lee_Drawing_1966_install_Levy_Gorvy_20170-1

Seung-taek Lee

Seung-taek Lee

Lévy Gorvy is pleased to represent Seung-taek Lee (b.1932) in the United States. Seung-taek Lee’s experimental practice holds an influential place in the history of Korean art; throughout his career, he has challenged traditionally held notions of identity and history, forging a new path for artistic exploration of environment, culture, and philosophy.

A pioneer of the Korean avant-garde and part of the first generation of experimental artists to embrace innovation and modernist influences after the end of the Korean War in 1953, Seung-taek Lee has continuously engaged political and cultural themes over the course of his six-decade career. His diverse and prolific oeuvre encompasses sculpture, installation, performance, and Land art. Notions of negation—which the artist calls dematerialization, non-sculpture, and anti-concept—are central to Seung-taek Lee’s approach, and indicate the process by which ordinary or mundane objects are transformed to be imbued with metaphysical meaning. Using broken tree branches, wire, Korean hanji paper, stones, human hair, fabric, and rope, his works elevate the objects and interactions that comprise daily life to the level of the mythical. Seung-taek Lee’s sculptures often involve environmental themes and his practice corresponds with contemporaneous developments in Land Art, Japanese Mono-ha, and Post-Minimalism.

In the late 1950s, Seung-taek Lee began work on his Godret Stone series, in which the artist affixes rocks to wooden bars with rope; by making the stones appear weightless and soft, he obscures their true physical nature. In the next decade, Seung-taek Lee turned his focus to representing imperceptible or ephemeral natural phenomena such as wind, fire, water, and smoke, further exploring the concept of dematerialization. Seung-taek Lee’s fascination with history led him to believe that the artist’s role is in “connecting different worlds in search of another realm.” His vernacular is eminently materialist and deeply rooted in a sense of place, celebrating the incidental beauty of Korean folk traditions.

Seung-taek Lee’s work resides in the permanent collections of museums and institutions worldwide, including the Tate Modern, London; the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; and the Seoul Museum of Art; among others. Solo exhibitions of Seung-taek Lee’s work have been held at the Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul and the Nam June Paik Art Center, Yongin. He received the Eunkwan Award from the Korean Ministry of Culture in 2014 and the Nam June Paik Art Center International Art Award in 2009.

Gallery Hyundai continues their representation of Seung-taek Lee in Asia.

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Selected Works

  • Seung-taek Lee

    Untitled
    2016
    Rope on colored canvas
    59 1/16 x 70 7/8 inches (150 x 180 cm)

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  • Seung-taek Lee

    Godret Stone
    1958
    Stones, rope, wood
    25 5/8 x 38 3/16 inches (65 x 97 cm)

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Video

Seung-taek Lee Exhibition

April 6, 2017

Exhibitions

Selected Press

ArtAsiaPacific | Non-Art: The Inversive Act

March 30, 2021

"Lee Seung Taek's Non-Art: The Inversive Act" is an encyclopedic presentation of approximately 250 sculptures, …

Korea Times | MMCA Seoul revisits Lee Seung-taek's 'non-art'

December 6, 2020

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, presents "Lee Seung Taek's Non-Art: The Inversive …

My Art Guides | Lee Seung Taek’s Non-Art: The Inversive Act

November 25, 2020

A large-scale retrospective of Lee Seung Taek, a representative figure in Korean experimental art with …

ArtNet News | Two Landmark US Museum Shows Will Spotlight the Long Overlooked History of Modern and Avant-Garde Korean Art

November 10, 2020

The Guggenheim and LACMA have ambitious surveys of 20th-century Korean art planned for 2022.

ZEALnyc | Art Break: South Korean Artist In First Solo Exhibition in U.S. at Lévy Gorvy

April 20, 2017

South Korean artist’s works ranging from the avant garde of the 1950s to Post Minimalism...

Hyperallergic | The Avant-Garde Oeuvre of a Classically Trained Sculptor from North Korea

April 13, 2017

Lee, born in 1932 in Kowon in the region of South Hamgyeong-do above the 38th parallel, has always been …

New York Times | As Top-Tier Artists Age, the Art World Hopes to Cash In

January 30, 2017

Even Brett Gorvy, who just left Christie’s after 23 years to join forces with the dealer Dominique …

The New York Times | Winds From Seoul

November 24, 2016

A few years ago, Dominique Lévy read Hans Ulrich Obrist’s interview with the Korean artist Lee Seung-taek. …

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