Lee Ufan, 1996

Lee Ufan's contemplative works are described by Jean Fisher as "sculptural propositions". In the Lisson publication released the same year as the artist's first solo exhibition, 1996, Fisher's essay remarked that: "poetic consciousness is also profoundly political and ethically accountable, a fact which becomes more evident when his writings are read in conjunction with the artwork: what is expressed as a written statement finds a structural parallel in the paintings and sculpture [...] In Lee Ufan’s work, neither stone nor steel is forced into configurations or structures – an anti-imperialist gesture towards materials which markedly distinguishes the artist’s philosophy of being in the world from the dominating strategies of Richard Long or American Minimalists like Carl Andre and Richard Serra. Nothing could be further from the Western idea of making the world into an image or grid and delimiting the space of action. If the Western tendency is to produce an anthropocentric closed and circumscribed form, the relations unfolded in Lee Ufan’s painting and sculpture produce an open work, available for differing perspective and unexpected perceptions, and where ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ fold into each other."

Jean Fisher, 'Lee Ufan', Selected writings by Lee Ufan 1970-96, published by Lisson Gallery, 1996