“The artworks I create are all tapestries of intimate breathing between me and the world. Therefore, seeing is not the confirmation of an object but a quiet concert of breathing between the work, the world and the viewer.” – Lee Ufan, c2004
‘Quiet Resonance’, an exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, is the latest embodiment of the world-renowned Lee Ufan’s art career. With eight new pieces of artwork, this exhibition encapsulates Ufan’s consistent use of nature. By creating deceptively minimal pieces of work, Ufan forces viewers to contemplate their perceptions on life and the modern world around us.
Lee Ufan asks visitors to the Art Gallery of New South Wales to reconsider their position as human beings in a time of artistic, intellectual, and environmental collapse in the name of industry. One might think Lee Ufan’s attitude to Artificial Intelligence, industrialisation, and overall modernity to be cynical rhetoric that pines for the golden past. However, Lee Ufan’s purposeful works do not critique this world he thinks is crumbling. Instead, they seek out the goodness of art, nature, and the miracle of creation, presenting new horizons of a hopeful future to the viewer.
Honi spoke to Lee Ufan about technology, the future of art in modern childhoods, the onus of humanity and nature, and how his childhood influenced his philosophy on making art.
***
Interview with Lee Ufan
KK: You once described your artistic process as ‘empty consciousness,’: the idea starts in the consciousness then moves through the physical act without consciousness. Is this the experience of being in nature for you, and how do you like to interact with and experience nature?
LU: [Translated by interpreter] So you shouldn’t misunderstand, but nature is unknown, it’s not a thing. And humans begin from nature, so you have to have a stimulation, a relationship between you and nature. I’m not expressing nature, and I think there will be a problem with being human having thought of almighty. But I want something that you can feel and express the universe, or something that’s beyond human. So you have to have contact with, and converse with nature. That’s why I used the sound, and stones, so you can correspond and have a sensory experience.
KK: You had an upbringing filled with learning, with poetry, with painting, and with calligraphy. Compared to technology changing childhoods today, how do you see children today learning from and interacting with the external world?
LU: [Translated by interpreter] That’s a very good question. I’ve been teaching for more than fifty years, and in the 1970s I would see students write themselves, and have first hand experiences as well. But I stopped teaching about 10 years ago, and by that time students were using computers, writing less, and having less experiences. Of course, they [computers] are very convenient and helpful, and we do need to cherish them but human beings are living things. They have to also experience the process and time. They have to have thoughts and experience. As for the children these days, they do have to be exposed to technology, but I do recommend that they play outside, and do something that is old school, such as calligraphy or piano, so that they have something they can use their body for, something that’s physical, then they will be able to have a fuller life.
***
The artist’s disdain for AI is evident: he emphasises the humanity behind creation and the necessity of the physical act behind art: “This is why the viewer feels a bodily response to the magnetic pull of my work”. Using the classical tool of a brush, he savours his encounter with the canvas: “I hold my breath and drive down a line”. He speaks spiritually about the power of the breathing body interacting with the ‘other’ to express infinity. Melanie Eastburn, Senior Curator of Asian art at the gallery, expressed her delight at being able to work so closely with Lee Ufan. Eastburn spoke of the artist’s spontaneity and openness to creation: just the morning of the exhibition’s unveiling, Eastburn watched as Lee Ufan picked up charcoal to sketch a beautiful and deliberated mural consisting of three lines.
Honi also spoke with Toby Slade, Head of School for the School of Design at UTS and expert in Japanese history, about his thoughts on the exhibition. Despite the exhibition’s descriptions and Lee Ufan oft-parroted biography emphasising Zen and Confuscian influences, the artist refuses to be confined to these philosophies. Slade expressed his adoration for Ufan’s work and how the work is completely fresh to the typical political art that surrounded Ufan’s upbringing. Slade also touches on the importance of the idea of space, or absence of, in the exhibition and how vital this is for true meditation and contemplation of the senses.
“Art disrupts the mundane and gives a glimpse of another dimension – how wonderful it is!”
Lee Ufan’s apparent disdain for technology and the modern era doesn’t mean he’s cynical about the world. In ‘Quiet Resonance’, he celebrates humanity’s kernel of goodness, the beauty of human interaction with nature, and the power of art to glimpse the divine.
Lee Ufan’s Quiet Resonance exhibition is open at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with free entry until 31st September 2024.
