The Korean artist Lee Ufan, a leading figure of the abstract art movement Mono-ha, is donating eight of his paintings to the Dia Art Foundation in New York. The works, spanning the 1970s to the 90s, will be featured in a spring 2026 exhibition at the foundation’s complex in Beacon, New York, alongside sculptural installations already in Dia’s collection.
The gifted works come from Lee’s From Point (1975-80), From Line (1978) and With Winds (1991) series, and complement five of the artist’s installations that Dia has acquired since 2017. Several of those environments were featured in a long-term exhibition at Dia Beacon from 2019 to 2021. The forthcoming exhibition, co-organised by the Dia curators Matilde Guidelli-Guidi and Min Sun Jeon, will underline how Lee’s work and the Mono-ha movement more broadly resonate with the institution’s long-standing commitment to Conceptual, Minimalist, Post-Minimalist art and installation art.
Lee Ufan, From Point, 1978 © Lee Ufan/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Bill Jacobson Studio, New York
“In joining these works with my sculptures at Dia Beacon, I hope viewers will be able to experience the quiet energy that emerges through the dialogue of material, space and time—a sensibility that has shaped my practice for decades,” Lee said in a statement.
In addition to donating historical works for Dia’s permanent collection, Lee is collaborating with the London-based platform Avant Arte to release three editioned screenprints, sales of which will support the foundation’s programming.
“Lee’s work has long resonated with Dia’s commitment to the expansion of time, space and material presence, and the forthcoming exhibition will offer audiences a rare opportunity to experience the full breadth of his contribution to post-war art,” Jessica Morgan, Dia’s director, said in a statement. “We are also grateful for his collaboration with Avant Arte, which will raise vital funds to support Dia’s mission and ongoing programming.”
Lee Ufan, With Winds, 1991 © Lee Ufan/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Bill Jacobson Studio, New York
Works in the artist’s From Point and From Line series record the passage time through the repeated application of mineral pigments, with dots and strokes, respectively, gradually becoming more faint. The With Winds works, meanwhile, which feature minimal brushstrokes in geometric configurations, date from the early 1990s, when Lee returned to painting after a prolonged engagement with installation art.
The three prints the artist created in collaboration with Avant Arte are based on key gifted works from the From Point and From Line series. Each is available in an edition of 150, priced at €6,000 ($6,800). “My practice is rooted in a quiet dialogue between gesture and space, mark and material,” the artist added in a statement, “the From Line and From Point series embrace the passage of time through repetition, rhythm and limitless variations, as pigment gradually fades to nothing with each linear stroke of the brush.”
