Born in 1936 in Korea, LEE UFAN lives and works chiefly in Paris and Kamakura, Japan. He is the main theorist and artist of the Mono-Ha (“School of Things”) theory in Japan.

His work has been shown around the world, at institutions including the Hermitage National Museum in St Petersburg, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, the Yokohama Museum of Art, the Jeu de Paume in Paris, the Kunstmuseum in Bonn, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul; and at events including the Biennales of Venice (2007, 2011), Gwangju (2000, 2006), Shanghai (2000), Sydney (1976), São Paulo (1973) and Paris (1971).

In 2014, Lee Ufan was the guest artist at Louis XIV’s very own park and palace, in Versailles. Lee Ufan was awarded the Praemium Imperiale for painting in 2001 and the UNESCO Prize in 2000. In 2010 the Lee Ufan Museum opened at Benesse Art Site, in Naoshima, Japan.

The artist will shortly open a new foundation in Arles, housed in the Hôtel Vernon, a seventeenthcentury building located near the city’s Roman arena, remodelled by the artist’s friend, architect Tadao Ando.

His retrospective “Lee Ufan. Inhabiting Time” is on view at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, France, until September 30th, 2019.