[Gallery Walk] At 83, Lee Kangso Still Does Not Believe in "Completion"

Lee Kangso Solo Exhibition "Arising and Vanishing" Opens at Lotte Museum on August 21

Over 20 "Ghost Sculptures" Draped in Cloth and 30 "Throwing Sculptures" on Display... Unseen Works Included

First Unveiling of New Works on Mulberry Paper and Ink... 1973 "Extinction" Reimagined for Today's Space

You go to see the works, but they're not shown. On one side of the Lotte Museum exhibition hall in Jamsil, Seoul, around twenty sculptures placed on metal shelves are covered with white and yellow cloth. These are the so-called "ghost sculptures"—a recreation of how Lee Kangso (83) used to store his works in his actual studio. Only the corners and bits of the masses peek out from under the cloth. Since you cannot see what they are, your eyes are drawn to them all the more. In this large-scale solo exhibition presenting over 150 pieces, the most intriguing works are the ones least visible.

At the Lotte Museum's exhibition "Lee Kangso: Arising and Vanishing," so-called "ghost sculptures" covered with cloth are displayed alongside the artist's tools, photographs, and video materials. Lee Kangso transferred the method of storing sculptures from his actual studio to the exhibition space. Photo by Chanwoo Park, Lotte Museum

"Lee Kangso: Arising and Vanishing," which opens on August 21, spans his half-century of artistry across painting, sculpture, installation, printmaking, photography, and video. In recent years, large-scale exhibitions of Lee's work have been held at both the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art and the Daegu Art Museum. Therefore, it is not enough to simply summarize '60 years of Korea's experimental art master' once more. What stands out in this exhibition instead is the way Lee has long left his works partially undefined. He throws soil, leaves paintings partially empty, sometimes entrusts traces to chickens, and even veils finished sculptures with cloth.

The exhibition cleverly introduces this question. At the entrance, a new work greets viewers: an LED screen, the size of the original, displaying his iconic painting "Chungmyeong." On the mirror facing it, the image is reflected again. What you see in front of you becomes quickly muddled—is it a physical work, an image transposed in light, or a reflection in the mirror? In the exhibition's opening scene, Lee gently widens the gap between reality and image, between seeing and believing—an idea he has long explored.

Soon after, about 30 "Throwing Sculptures" are displayed, and these works are far more physical. Instead of smoothing raw clay with his hands, he throws it into the air. Hitting the floor, the clay is crushed and collides with other lumps, forming unexpected shapes. Lee’s intervention ends the moment he throws. Speed, gravity, and collisions then take over. Even when the act is repeated, not one sculpture is ever the same.

In contrast, paintings slow the viewer down. Across wide canvases, a few brushstrokes of dark ink and grey sweep by, leaving much of the surface empty. From a distance, forms reminiscent of ducks, boats, or deer emerge, but as you approach, the imagery blurs, leaving only the flow of paint and the trajectory of the brush. Finding a duck does not mean you’ve seen everything; failing to identify anything does not mean failure. Lee never fully determines what you should see.

The exhibition hall at Lotte Museum where Kangso Lee's representative series of paintings is displayed. Through forms reminiscent of ducks, pears, and deer, open spaces, and swift brushstrokes, the artist showcases the pictorial experiments he has pursued since the 1980s. Photo by Chanwoo Park, Lotte Museum

For this reason, his newly released works on traditional Korean mulberry paper and ink are viewed in the context of his age rather than the material itself. Having spent decades working with canvas and acrylic, Lee, now 83, opted once again for a different surface and materiality. For a painter of such long experience, skill is an advantage, but it can also become the most dangerous habit. Lee's notion of "experiment" seems closer to staying alert to the moment his own hand starts to move automatically, rather than continually inventing new forms.

This attitude has not changed much since the 1970s. At the 1975 Paris Biennale, Lee left the footprints of chickens roaming freely over plaster powder as his artwork. For "Space," where reeds from the banks of the Nakdong River were brought into the exhibition space, these now meet mirrors at both ends, turning it into a reed field extending much further than the real space. More than focusing on things he made, Lee fixated on events that briefly arose and vanished in a given place—a hallmark of that era.

Perhaps the most famous work is his first solo exhibition "Extinction" in 1973. At the age of 30, Lee filled Myeongdong Gallery not with paintings, but with old tables, chairs, and cups from a tavern, and offered visitors makgeolli. Relationships and time created by people as they drank and conversed became the work of art. In the current exhibition, instead of restoring the old tavern as a frozen display, benches have been set so that visitors can sit and converse.

Lee Kangso's 'Throwing Sculpture,' which accepts the form created by gravity and collision as the soil is thrown into the air, is placed in the exhibition hall. It shows the artist's sculptural world that emphasizes chance and process over control. Photo by Park Chanwoo, Lotte Museum

However, the shock from 53 years ago cannot be fully revived. Today, viewer participation and rest areas in art museums are already familiar. While understanding the historical significance of past works is helpful, it is still far from the sense of unfamiliarity that "an exhibition without paintings" once provoked. This is why it is difficult to bring Lee's old experiments back to life now. Reproducing the form is different from reviving those initial questions for the present.

In this respect, the latter part of the exhibition is more engaging. Among large brushes, cameras, photos, and records brought straight from the artist's studio, the "ghost sculptures" appear again. The retrospective—previously focused on finished works—suddenly circles back to the time of the working artist. The tools bear traces of hands that have gripped them countless times, and the sculptures under cloth seem to be waiting for their turn to be unveiled. This is an exhibition that meticulously organizes 150 completed works, but the closer you get to the end, the more ambiguous the word "complete" becomes.

Lee Kangso described the central question throughout his career as: "How do you encounter the unexpected?"

At the end of the exhibition, you see the sculptures shrouded in cloth once again. What they are remains unknown. That is where the artist stopped. Just as he left the space to gravity after throwing clay, and left parts of his canvas empty after a few brushstrokes, this time he leaves the rest up to the viewer. This is how experimentation continues at 83.

The exhibition runs until November 1 at the Lotte Museum. Adult admission is 20,000 won.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.