The Large Glass Journal, in its last issue (37/38, 2025), published a series of interviews with artists, curators, and artistic directors.
Here we bring the interview of Sonja Abadžieva, art historian, curator, and former director of MoCA–Skopje (from 1977 to 1984), which offers unique insights into the world of this internationally acclaimed artist, conducted during her visit to his studio in Kamakura in 1996. Lee Ufan’s sculpture is currently on display at the Rijksmuseum Garden in Amsterdam, and his work can also be seen at the distinguished Lee Ufan Museum on the Japanese island of Naoshima, as well as in the collections of several world-renowned institutions, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Tate Museums in London.
Relatum: Simultaneously a place and a relation
During my residency at the Tokyo Art Institute (1995 – 97) as a Japan Foundation Fellow, my respected mentor Shinichi Segi— the renowned Japanese art critic, researcher, and gallerist—introduced me to the artist Lee Ufan. The director of the Museum of Modern Art in Kamakura, Mr. Tadayasu Sakai, was the intermediary in establishing our encounter. I first learned about the exceptional importance of Lee Ufan at the La Biennale di Venezia (1970), where he represented the legendary Japanese group Mono-ha. I visited the artist in his studio—a nest embedded in the heart of the bamboo forest in the fashionable city of Kamakura, near Tokyo, in 1996.
Growing up during the Japanese colonization of Korea, artist Lee Ufan emerged as a pioneering practitioner and theorist. He rejected Western ideas about art and conducted extensive research into advancing the understanding of space, simultaneously as a place and a relation-relatum. Alongside creatives Kishio Suga, Nobuo Sekine, and Takamatsu Jirō, Ufan was a founder of the Mono-ha movement in 1968, which gained global recognition.
SONJA ABADŽIEVA_ You graduated with a major in philosophy from Nihon University in Tokyo in 1961, and then, for a long time, you worked as a professor at Tokyo’s Tama University. Considering your popularity in the world of visual arts as a painter and an ambient sculptor, few people are aware of your core activity as a writer, theorist, philosopher, and art critic. What impact did your broad spectrum of activities have on Japanese art in the late 1960s and 1970s?
LEE UFAN_ One could say that my entry into the history of Japanese and world art history began as the ideologist and founder of the Japanese group Mono-ha, which is de facto considered as a continuation of the already globally affirmed group GUTAI, which participated at the Venice Biennial and exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The main contribution to partially surpassing the Japanese traditional expression and the dominant, mostly conventional, views of art criticism and theory (acceptance, alteration, assimilation) can be attributed precisely to the formation of an alternative option, an idea for exceeding the present situation by means of the theoretical platform of the Mono-ha group.
At that time, I was truly obsessed with philosophy, especial- ly that of Merleau Ponty (the minimalist paradigm), “l’être” by Heidegger, “l’infini” by Spinoza, “la chose” by Kant, “topos”
by Kitaro Nishida, etc. The concepts put forth by these philosophers reflect my interests in how the world is formed and how it functions without human intervention. The world exists as something that transcends the self (myself) and something that is impenetrable. Facing the impenetrable, the Other, I chose to constantly transform myself into that Other. The artwork depicts a relationship that results from the encounter with the Other and represents the space where the interaction takes place.
SA_ Let’s go back to Mono-ha, a group that made a pionee- ring breakthrough on the international art scene during a period of instability for modern and contemporary Japanese art (fukakuji tsusei no jidai).[1] The group is considered to be a remarkable fusion between a Buddhist and European understanding of the world, a symbol of creating art on the “very edge” of the difference between natural simplicity and artistic transposition, all within the realm of minimalism in spatial installations. It focused on the unmade creation, not on the already made and known, virtually coinciding chronologically with both the Arte Povera movement in Europe and Minimalism in the USA.
In fact, you started creating as a direct reaction to Pop Art and Conceptual Art. At the beginning, you used an Asian painting technique with pigments mixed with glue and a calligraphy brush on canvases, and then moved on to the usual painting process. How would you comment on this extended question?
Sonja Abadzieva and Lee Ufan in his Tokyo studio
LU_ Firstly, something on the name Mono-ha. It is usually translated as School of Things [mono = thing, ha = faction or group]. The theorist Toshiki Minemura defines it as a group of Japanese artists, active before and after 1970, who tried to create a visual language from things as they are (natural), and unmodified, thus acquiring a fundamental significance. Hence, some of its members used earth, water, oil, stone, wood, glass, paper, leather, and metal,
In other words, in their paintings, they included visually reduced strokes, points made with the brush, lines, and the spontaneous dripping of color. These members of the group included: Nobuo Sekine, Kenji Inumaki, Katsuro Yoshida, Susumu Koshimizu, Kishio Suga, Katsuhiko Narita, Koji Enokura, Noboru Takayama, Li Ufan, Jiro Takamatsu, Hitoshi Nomura, and Noriyuki Haraguchi. With the arrival of the new scene of Mono-ha, [also] came […] the immersion into the global, international “sea.” It should be constantly kept in mind, in this case, that modern art was presented through an objectifying process of a kind, based on representational logic, through which “its face” was reflected to the world.
As long as the representation is a painting, it is inevitably a virtual representation. The conscious dimension of the representation can only give power to the painting if it separates itself from the world, by declaring that it will not dissolve by merging with the world. And so, its members said to themselves: “instead of making the world a recognisable, familiar shape (an object), let’s present the real world itself and exhibit the everyday things that are usually ignored, setting them free to shine and thereby expand the world.”
SA_ Isn’t it already becoming clear that the Mono-ha group is compatible with the international scene? I even find points of reference with the narratives of some Macedo- nian authors from the seventies (Simon Shemov / Kocho Fidanovski, Ismet Ramichevikj, Gligor Stefanov, Petre Nikoloski, Ibrahim Bedi, etc.).
LU_ Yes, of course – as in other cultures, the spirit of escaping the known and defined against the rigid objectivity and rationality of Modernism, is evident. The Japanese Arte Povera and the conceptualism of the members of the Gutai and Mono-ha groups are already free of metaphorical, symbolic connotations. The expression is focused on the materials themselves.
In any case, I feel the interference of different cultures, for example from the Asian art realm (the participants in the before mentioned Japanese groups, related authors from China and Korea) and from Europe (Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Yannis Kounelis, etc.).
SA_ I perceive your authentic language and visual poetics as a miraculous continuity from the very beginnings to today. What are the artistic cycles through which the persistence of an idea is expressed, starting from the late sixties and seventies until today?
LU_ Yes, the works of the series From Point (1973), Relatum (1968/1990), and With Winds from the nineties, are later placed in a profound relation with the works of the cycle From Winds, Relatum and Correspondence (1992/3).
SA_ In an interview, you say that you would like to cover painting, sculpture and architecture, but since the latter is the one synthetically most connected to space, you chose to maintain flatness in painting, and the volumi- nous through sculpture. Is there more dynamism in your painting in contrast to the spatial sculptures, where silence dominates?
LU_ In painting, I stand face to face with the canvas, whe- reas in sculpture the space and the material are interwoven. They become translucent, that is, neither completely objective nor completely abstract. This intermediate state, where the artist is attentive to both matter and space, and listens and responds to them, creates an impression of the static.
SA_ In the sculptural installations Correspondences, or in Relatum, the roughness of the stone meets the smoothness of the glass, water, and steel; while in the painting, however, the virgin-like canvas becomes one with the Japanese à la sumi-e brush strokes. Are there symbolic connotations in these encounters?
LU_ The stone has no metaphorical or symbolic meaning. It is representative of nature that transcends objectivity. When faced with undefined nature, humans find it difficult to establish and conduct a dialogue with it. My question is how to establish contact with nature. This is exactly where my focus is, my philosophy. Stone and metal come from nature, whether untouched or from nature in which humans have intervened. The metal plate is a bridge between the fake, the artificial and the real. The smoothness of the plate bears a human mark, while the stone or the brush stroke comes from a sphere that is more removed from humans. These collisions point to the relationship between abstrac- tion and materiality.
SA_ It seems we are now opening up the fundamental axis of the Lee Ufan philosophy—the question of the infinite?
LU_ Modern art is predominantly interested in objectivity, in facts and in the finite, the defined. I think that the space opens up and the infinite manifests itself when the world of facts and objects engages with the world of the unmade. In this sense, space is simultaneously a place and a relation – relatum. The object depends on the place and the place needs the object to indicate it, to make it evident. I am intrigued to study the tоpological relationship between place and object. Modern art privileged being, and devalued decomposition and disappearance. In this way, it denied
the passing of time. But time and space are inseparable. Buddhism teaches us that being is only possible because there is non-being and actions. Because, once we accept disappearance, we begin to understand time. My cycles From Point, From Lines, From Winds are based on exactly that tоpology, between the place and the object, or the subject.
SA_ Would you agree if I stated that the question of empti- ness is a topos in your oeuvre: the canvas is as if unfinished, and the stone appears to be floating above the water or the glass?
LU_ My interest dwells on the relationship between what is painted [made] and what is not made, created. In a way, I oppose the artist’s tendency to saturate the canvas to the last drop – all over – or to smooth the stone to perfection, as Pollock does in painting or Brâncuși in sculpture, for instance. That is why I work on only a small part of the canvas, that is to say, I leave a space between the stone and the plate. I try to limit the involvement of the artist and give voice to the untouched parts. The human, that is the artist, contributes with a single small point, in order to give up the idea of doing everything.
SA_ Is it an illusion that silence prevails in your paintings or sculptures/installations (ambients)? Does silence have a peripheral role, or is it completely replaced by the concept of emptiness?
LU_ The silence in my work is the language of the emptiness that corresponds to the material; emptiness has nothing in common with silence. The void is not a space in which the artist talks, but a place inhabited by the artist’s face and voice. When the violin plays, we hear a sound that does not belong to either the musician or the violin. This is a third “sound,” a resonance that reveals to us what silence and emptiness are. In the East, silence is a synonym for truth.
SA_ In relation to the terms: emptiness, silence, unfinished, etc., the concept of infinity imposes itself as a significant concept. You deliberated on this for a long time, to elaborate and artistically embody it in your practice.
LU_ I appreciate artworks aiming for the sense of infinity. For example, as in the landscapes of the Chinese T’ang and Sung, overwhelmed by the power of the silky whiteness of the unpainted areas, circling around the painted parts. Or the painted fragments of the Roman wall paintings in Pompeii. The greatness of these artists reaches through time and the distances involved. The works’ interaction with the surrounding space, enables me to feel the inexhaustible breath of infinity.
In this sense, I would also mention Claude Monet and Lucio Fontana. Monet, through his colours that change from minute to minute, in parallel with the endless permutations of time, creating variations in space. Monet thus refers to, and invokes, the world’s changeability. Both artists create beautiful visualisations of the non-existent, while at the same time, creating connections with the outside world.
SA_ Where is the Ego here, and how suppressed is it?
LU_ I do not like to verbalise or describe the world through myself, but I gladly perceive and acknowledge the connections with the outside world. My works are not just mine, since they are drawn from the outside world. They are my explorations of the infinite. It is not about the thesis of symbolising oneself (self-symbolisation), but above all, about defining and confirming one’s own existence in relation to the Other. I want to perceive the world through the space that is created by relations, connections.
SA_ The elaborated concept of the infinite can be read as minimalism, which does not correspond, theoretically, to the Western/American model of this artistic movement.
LU_ Works of art are not reality and are not the personifi- cation of concepts. Fragmented and interdimensional, they exist between reality and concept, enabling and influencing both. Fragmentation is thus a wider, slightly dehumanised territory of the work of art. I would like to draw the maxi- mum correlation through contact with the minimal. I have to free myself inside, in the world itself, through the unusual [practice] of returning to nothingness. The elaboration of only a small part of the world unites me, and facilitates my first-hand experiences. In this sense, I am a spatial minimalist.
I prefer an animated space to an animated work of art. The work of art is not a symbolised text. It is a mutable living being that leads to both contradictions, as well as to an accumulated, amalgamated energy. The balanced relation- ship between the surrounding space and the very materials must act as a unity. This is similar to the rigors of physical training for athletes, through which they are enhancing their physical power. I am the one who creates the power of balance and the feeling of infinity. This depends on the spatial strength of the negative space.
SA_ How is the phenomenon of infinity created visually?
LU_ I created the infinite through the series of paintings From Line, From Point, from the beginning of the 1970s, thus elaborating on repetition and divergence, rather than indicating the connection with the Other. I created the territory of the painting by balancing the relationship between the points and the lines, and the distance between them, opened through the infinite (the cosmic). In sculpture, I created the relationship in the space between the natural stone and the glass or metal plate, as a natural, but hu- man-processed material. This juxtaposition represents the ability to create a correlation that reinforces the boundaries of the external world.
I would also like to point out that I am aiming for a relationship whereby, in certain installations, the negative space and the surface of the wall are emphasised – the work of art in which the correspondence between the base (foundation) and the corners (edges) cause a reciprocal action with the surrounding space.
My works, by not belonging to, or being estranged from the world of the known, or from the world intervened in by humans, contain an unusual strangeness and attempt to grasp the infinite. The world is more vast, and larger than me, representing something obscure. My works point to that place where I meet and connect with the Other.
SA_ During your stays and period of connectivity to the French art scene of the 1960s/70s, was there a certain closeness with some of your colleagues from that time? I am thinking, more specifically, of the authors Claude Viala and Niele Toroni and the approach related to the repetition of time and of actions? And finally, can you also expand your answer to include relations with certain Anglo-American minimalists as well?
LU_ Certain works by Viala or Toroni are visually close to some of my canvases. However, in terms of their motifs and materials, my installations are closer to the works of Richard Serra, Carl Andre, Robert Smithson or Richard Long. The connection (between us) is related to the notion of infinity, but specifically as an element of reconciliation with the world, with the environment. These authors do
not appreciate the concept of existence outside- the-self, especially not the world outside of civilization. Whereas the “stones” that I use are outside of human-made reality, and are a connection with the outside world.
[1] 1 深く知的な時代 -“the era of deep knowledge” or “the age of profound understanding.”
The entire series of interviews can be read in the printed copy of The Large Glass, issue 37/38 available in the MoCA-Skopje shop or to be ordered on info@msu.mk.
