Lee, Seung-Taek

1930 Born Gowon Korea

1959 B.F.A Dept of Sculpture, Hongik University, Seoul

Selected Exhibitions

1969 The 6^th Paris Biennale. ( FRANCE )

1970 The 3^rd Sao Paolo Biennale ( BRAZIL )

1981 The Year of Art -National Museum of Contemporay Art

1990 Venice Biennale ( Italy )

1992 Kassel Documenta ( Germany )

2004 Kwangju Biennale ( Korea )

A Strategy of ‘Non-Sculpture’ and ‘Anti-Concept’

Among the concepts most often mentioned in the work of Lee, Seung-Taek is ‘Non-Sculpture.’ He himself often used the term ‘ Anti-Concept’ or ‘Non-Sculpture.’

Which is perhaps why most art critics interpret his work in this context.

But he also used these concepts as manifestation of his rejection of existing ideas and orders, meaning that his real work had no relation with any sculptural concept whose initial goal was plasticity. In the concept of non-sculpture, sculpture is neither anti-nor pro-in existing art, but a rupture and a direct rejection.

It’s also important, in the same context, to distinguish anti concept and non-sculpture from the essential negative revelation.

Although Lee’s work manifested a sharp and critical break from existing art, it also declared itself at odds with and suspicious of given ideas and existing orders in the particular world of Korean Art.

We should look at his work, then, as a strategic negation of a given situation rather then as a finality, a context in which it understands perfectly the principles of contemporary art, which is rare and unlike other Korean art, and knows how to express codes and idioms in a unique way.