Painter, sculptor, writer and philosopher Lee Ufan first came to prominence in the late 1960s as one of the major proponents of the Japanese avant-garde group Monoha. Japan's first contemporary art movement to gain international recognition, the Monoha school of thought rejected Western notions of representation, choosing to focus on the relationships of materials and perceptions rather than on expression or intervention. The movement's definitive goal was to embrace the world at large and encourage the fluid coexistence of ...
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Painter, sculptor, writer and philosopher Lee Ufan first came to prominence in the late 1960s as one of the major proponents of the Japanese avant-garde group Monoha. Japan's first contemporary art movement to gain international recognition, the Monoha school of thought rejected Western notions of representation, choosing to focus on the relationships of materials and perceptions rather than on expression or intervention. The movement's definitive goal was to embrace the world at large and encourage the fluid coexistence of numerous beings, concepts and experiences. Lee Ufan's formation in the philosophy department at Nihon University in Tokyo earned him a distinguished role as the movement's spokesman. His writing, presented here in English for the first time, was capable of expressing some of the artistic concepts of concern to artists in Japan during the late 60s. At that time, young Monoha artists raised some of the fundamental questions posed by contemporary artists everywhere: What does it mean to produce a work of art at the end of the twentieth century? What is the sense of art today?
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