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24/10/2006

Young-Jae Lee

Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich

1111 Schalen (1111 Bowls). Installation in the Rotunda of the Pinakothek der Moderne

In its characteristic Rotunda, the Pinakothek der Moderne is playing host to a very special >>performance<< over the coming three months. The principal performers are 1111 ceramic bowls of the Korean artist Young-Jae Lee. They create the impression of a field of fragile, shimmering bowls having emerged in the midst of the light-filled architecture of the Pinakothek der Moderne. In seemingly infinite numbers the pastel-coloured bowls shine out from the pale grey terrazzo floor and take soundings of the room they dominate. Like a choir of 1111 voices this installation penetrates the entire building from the piazza entrance to the dome.

The installation >>1111 Bowls<< by the Korean artist Young-Jae Lee does, though, pay tribute to each object as a single item within the group. Every bowl stands on its allocated spot as an individual and is to be seen as such. It took the artist months to create each bowl in keeping with the traditional principles of ceramic handicrafts. The clear, simple shapes of the ceramics give them a timeless beauty. Although filigree and fragile, each individual bowl evokes a sense of permanence.

The bowls cast a spell over the second storey beneath the glass dome by absorbing and intensifying the play on light characteristic of this architecture. 1111 sensitive, delicately shaded ceramic dishes capture the clear light in the Rotunda. It then refracts on their glazed, rounded shapes or sends out reflexes in to the opening chalices. 1111 objects create countless shadows. They invite visitors to pause, ponder and gaze, to take their time perusing an endless host of everyday objects that, in fact, should be familiar to them. The viewer find himself challenged to change his perspective - to peer down onto the bowls from a standing position and look into their unprotected interior, but also to bend down on his knees and focus his gaze on the spaces between the shining dishes.

There will be the occasional assembly of a further 111 bowls on the ground floor of the Rotunda in the middle of the concourse usually reserved for visitors, a focal point of the building’s architecture. Pure and exposed, the bowls stand on the grey terrazzo floor, creating a powerful impact despite their fragility - an impact that emerges from the way the many ceramics come together as a whole to unite contrasting features. Primarily the bowls are receptacles known to man since the prehistoric period. At the same time, however, each bowl represents a product that has been hand-made and is therefore unique in character. Each one bears traces of its creator’s hands and of the manufacturing process on the potter’s wheel and in the furnace. The bowls are distinctive not only in their particular colouring, which ranges from pale yellow to shimmering grey green. Their shape, volume, size and silhouette are also unique. United in each and every one of them are the experience and the foresight of the artist. Her experience is based on the ancient tradition of arts and crafts, one that has been acquired through making innumerable ceramics. Young-Jae Lee’s foresight enables her to give every bowl an individual shape and to feel what is possible so that she can control the creative process.

1111 Bowls are the product of two year’s working by hand and each one has been placed at a specific point on the floor of the Pinakothek der Moderne by the artist herself. This process has been long and hard, requiring a measurable amount of time. In the installation >>1111 Bowls<< one feels a sense of time. Indeed, it is materialised.

For the past 30 years, the Korean-born artist Young-Jae Lee has been living and working in Germany. Her work has received many awards - among them, on two occasions, the State Prize of Bavaria. It is shaped by the discourse she conducts with the traditions of both Korean pottery and Western art of the 20th and 21st centuries. It brings together Eastern and Western attitudes to life and philosophy, tradition and modernity, the individual and the group.

Accompanying the exhibition is the publication >>Young-Jae Lee - 1111 Schalen<<, Published by Reinhold Baumstark and including essays by Anne-Marie Bonnet, Gisela Jahn, Friedhelm Mennekes, Willibald Veit and Thomas Wagner, 272 pages, 163 colour illustrations, Hatje Cantz, ISBN 3-7757-1852-4. Price c. 39.80 Euros.

Press conference: 25.10.2006, 17.30. Following the press preview the exhibition will be opened in the presence of the artist. You are cordially invited to the opening.

Pinakothek der Moderne
Barer Strabe 29 - Munich

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