LEEUNGNO MUSEUM
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Current Exhibitions

이응노, 낯선 귀향

 

2018 is the 60th anniversary of Lee Ungno’s migration to Europe after having held a farewell exhibition, ‘Leaving for France’. Moving to France in his mid-fifties, the artist ventured into an extreme transformation of his style by adopting European abstraction in his own works, which had been created on the basis of East Asian art. He then had to choose French citizenship due to inevitable historical and political circumstances, and died a French national after spending the rest of his life creating works of art in France. Since his life’s journey enabled him to cross borders and experience different civilisations, he left a significant legacy in both Korean and French art.

   For the last several years, the art-historical meaning of Lee Ungno’s oeuvre has been vigorously investigated in France. From the 2015 exhibition ‘Séoul-Paris-Séoul’ at the Musée Cernuschi to the exhibitions ‘Lee Ungno: l’homme des foules’ at the Musée Cernuschi, ‘Donation Lee Ungno’ at the Centre Pompidou and ‘La Danse des signes – Ungno Lee, Georges Noël, Mark Tobey’ at the Galerie Thessa Herold in 2017, all these shows held in the mainstream of the French art world established Lee Ungno as a master in the history of modern and contemporary art.

   Mael Bellec, a curator of the Musée Cernuschi, most contributed to the recent art-historical evaluation of Lee Ungno in France. Since his critical perspective is based on French culture, he opens a new avenue for researches into Lee Ungno’s works distinguished from previous studies which analyzed the artist within the context of Korean art history. Therefore, the Lee Ungno Museum invited Bellec to organize this exhibition and aimed to explore the artistic meaning of Lee Ungno’s works interpreted from the other’s perspective.

   While preparing for this exhibition, Bellec fully cooperated with the Lee Ungno Museum in the loan of twenty-nine pieces from the collections of the Musée Cernuschi and the Centre Pompidou. In particular, those works from the Musée Cernuschi that had never been lent were loaned to the Lee Ungno Museum especially for Korean audiences. Bringing Lee Ungno’s works to the artist’s homeland, the French curator hopes that people understand ‘a stranger at home’ with new eyes.  

 

Eunmin Lim   Curator of the Lee Ungno Museum 

 

 

 

After decades of persecution for political reasons in Korea, the family of Lee Ungno began to recover the artist’s status within art history from the 1990s onward. Their efforts were institutionalized in the form of the Lee Ungno Museum in Daejeon, which opened its doors in 2007. More recently, the Cernuschi Museum and the Centre Pompidou in Paris have also taken part in this endeavour, assisting in the revival of Lee Ungno’s waning fame in Europe.

   Lee Ungno is now better known than he was a few years ago. His works are recognized by people around the world that are interested either in contemporary or in Asian art. However, being a famous artist is as much a blessing as it is a curse. An artist whose work is familiar to the audience runs the risk of not being sufficiently looked at anymore. His paintings might now be identified by connoisseurs of art at first glance, but may not be contemplated, analyzed and questioned anymore with a curiosity of mind begotten by a confrontation with the unknown.

   Yet the complexity of Lee Ungno’s oeuvre is far too important to be merely given a brief look. He inherited the folk and the literati culture of Korea, studied Japanese painting from the Taishō (1912-1926) and Shōwa (1926-1989) periods, contributed to the founding of Korean contemporary art, became a part of the French art scene without ever losing sight of the Korean one and managed to simultaneously be an almost official artist as well as a political exile.

   This exhibition was organized for those who appreciate Lee Ungno’s work specifically and for lovers of art more generally to remind them of the artist’s multifaceted identity as it demonstrates how his works can be understood in many different ways. Such understanding will make the study of Lee Ungno all the more complicated, but also a much more enjoyable pursuit. We hope that visitors to the exhibition will find the time spent in the museum worthwhile.

Mael Bellec




푸터


LEEUNGNO MUSEUM


#157, Dunsan-daero, Seo-gu, Daejeon, 35204, South Korea / Tel : 042) 611-9800 / Fax : 042) 611-9819

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