The Dissonance exhibition of painting and sculpture takes place in a particular context. An international artist of Korean origin, mainly living in Japan when he isn’t in his Parisian studio or busy developing his foundation in New York, in the past few years Lee Ufan has been sought out by the greatest art institutions and events such as Documenta, the Venice Biennale, Guggenheim Museum and MoMA in New York. Given these conditions, coming to life again in Arles on the occasion of the publication, by Actes Sud, of his first monograph in French is an act of freedom and of friendship. What Lee Ufan considers most important will be brought together in Arles: the conditions favorable to the apparition of meaning. Initially a writer and philosopher, Lee Ufan found his way to artistic creation through a movement, Mono-Ha (‘the school of things’), of which he was initially the theoretician before directly participating through artistic gestures and group exhibtions. For many people, this adventure was similar to Arte Povera, whether in the use of simple materials gleaned from nature, the bringing together of basic industrial products (felt, rubber, steel plates...), the desire to produce art from what is there, or entrusting to the power of the gesture the extra charge that produces the artistic thing. In this trajectory, Dissonance is an entirely new exhibition where Lee Ufan recreates in painting and sculpture the relationships he seeks to make appear between forms and space. In this present manifestation, it is now a question of making the power of art appear, like a moral, a lesson in simplicity.

Michel Enrici, exhibition curator.