Inside Lee Ufan’s Largest Site-Specific Outdoor Installation Ever - Architectural Digest
1 October 2019
Lee Ufan: Open Dimension is an ambitious site-specific commission by the celebrated Korean artist Lee Ufan. The expansive installation, featuring 10 new sculptures from the artist’s signature and continuing Relatum series, marks Lee Ufan’s largest single outdoor sculpture project in the US, the first exhibition of his work in the nation’s capital, and the first time in the Hirshhorn’s 45-year history that its 4.3-acre outdoor plaza has been devoted, almost in its entirety, to the work of a single artist.
“The reason that I borrow a stone is that it represents a chunk of time and contains an unknown opacity within,” he says. “The Hirshhorn’s spatial structure is fixed and a standard, shaped by the architect; I wanted to show a dimension beyond modern times.” On the 4.3-acre site, Lee will leave those 15 stones virtually unaltered, a method that is consistent in all of his work using natural materials. The object itself is not important, he says, so much as presenting a physical contrast that helps to emphasize the existing elements of a site—the air, soil, and people that interact with his “relational structures.” He strives to create work that will reintroduce the nature of a space.
Lee Ufan: Open Dimension continues through September 2020. For more information visit www.hirshhorn.si.edu
