Seoul — Pace Gallery is excited to announce the opening of Correspondence: Lee Ufan and Mark Rothko, a landmark exhibition curated by renowned Korean artist Lee Ufan in collaboration with the Rothko family. The exhibition, set to run from September 4 to October 26, 2024, will coincide with Frieze Seoul, showcasing an extensive selection of works that bridge the artistic dialogues between two iconic figures of modern art.
Spanning two floors of the gallery, the exhibition will feature Lee Ufan's recent paintings from his Dialogue and Response series, created between 2018 and 2023, alongside major works by Mark Rothko from the 1950s and 1960s. This curated interaction aims to highlight the resonances and intersections between the two artists’ practices, particularly in their use of color, surface texture, and atmospheric effects.
Lee Ufan, born in 1936 in Korea, is celebrated as one of the leading figures of the Japanese avant-garde group Mono-ha, which emerged in the late 1960s. His artistic practice, deeply rooted in his appreciation for nature and materiality, explores the relationships between space, perception, and objects. Lee’s works often feature sparse, deliberate brushstrokes that capture the essence of materials and their interaction with space, inviting viewers to engage in a meditative experience.
Mark Rothko, born in 1903 in Latvia and a pioneer of the New York School, is one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. He is renowned for his Color-field paintings, which are distinguished by their large-scale canvases and layered transparencies of vibrant pigments. Rothko’s works are celebrated for their ability to evoke profound psychological and spiritual responses through the sublime use of color and form.
The exhibition will provide dedicated spaces for each artist's work, allowing visitors to experience their styles and thematic concerns. Rothko’s paintings, with their expansive fields of color and soft-edged compositions, are known for dissolving the boundaries between figure and ground, creating an immersive atmosphere that engages viewers in a contemplative dialogue.
In contrast, Lee Ufan’s works present a more defined approach, with crisp forms and deliberate brushstrokes that crystallize the fleeting energy of the artist’s gesture into a tangible, stone-like presence.
Both artists employ color as a central element in their work, but their approaches diverge significantly. Rothko’s method involves flooding the canvas with color, creating a sense of enveloping atmosphere that transcends physical boundaries. Lee’s use of color, on the other hand, often emerges as a more static and deliberate gesture, emphasizing the materiality of paint and its relationship to the artist’s breath and presence.
The exhibition will also feature Lee Ufan’s new sculpture, Relatum – Correspondence (2024), which will be installed in the gallery’s courtyard. This sculpture, featuring a heavy stone dropped onto a steel plate, examines the relationships between individual elements as defined by both space and objecthood, extending the themes of interaction and materiality present in Lee’s paintings.
Correspondence: Lee Ufan and Mark Rothko offer a profound exploration of abstraction and the transformative power of painting. By situating the works of these two masters in dialogue, the exhibition explores how their distinct yet complementary approaches to color and form produce a dynamic interplay of textures, atmospheres, and emotional resonances. This exhibition invites viewers to experience the climatic possibilities of abstraction and to reflect on how paintings can transform our perception of space and presence.
The exhibition promises to be a significant cultural event, providing a unique opportunity to engage with the works of two of modern art’s most influential figures in a new and thought-provoking context.
Sayart / Maria Kim, sayart2022@gmail.com
