Experimental Artist Lee Kang-So An interview with the artist

Edited by Seonae Yu 
Written by Lee So Young

“People around me say that this solo exhibition is a gift for my 80th birthday and 51st anniversary as a painter, but personally, I’m glad for the opportunity to be picked apart.” 

Artist Lee Kang-So speaks to Marie Claire in his studio ahead of his solo exhibition at the MMCA in October.

Co-organized by the MMCA and the Guggenheim Museum, the exhibition <Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s–1970s> toured the Guggenheim Museum in New York and closed at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. It must have been a special experience visiting the United States and seeing the exhibition in person. 

The more I think about it, the more I’m moved. It’s meaningful because I was born in 1943, and people my age are the first generation of Koreans to receive public education since the country’s founding. I entered elementary school in 1949 and studied using textbooks compiled by the government. Then, in 1950, the Korean War broke out, and, for a while thereafter, we had to study outdoors in the woods. I’ve been interested in art since elementary school, and I liked to read books and magazines like <Life>, which were available at the post-exchange on the US military base. I remember seeing Willem de Kooning’s action paintings in the magazine. Being fluent in Japanese, the generation of Korean artists before us interacted with Japanese artists after the contemporary art movement. Our generation spoke a little English, so we were more familiar with Western information. Many of our seniors had studied abroad in Japan. As Japan was heavily influenced by the West, Japanese art tended to reinterpret Western art in its own way. Korea also had its own indigenous style of art, but I wanted us to produce works that speak to Koreans rather than blindly imitating Western art. It was interesting to see the Korean style of contemporary art materialized by the first generation of artists exposed to Western art being highlighted by such world-class art museums. 

The global art world is anticipating your solo exhibition to be held at the MMCA in October. 

Preparing for this exhibition feels different from preparing for my past museum exhibitions. I think the MMCA has also changed, for the better. The curators and other staff are more committed to academic research, and they are more professional than those of my generation, which is why I showed them my works and left them in total charge of the organization. It feels good and refreshing to completely leave everything up to them. It feels like I’m learning about myself all over again; this experience alone makes it a good opportunity. I am excited to see how others view my works and how they would organize the exhibition. I don’t necessarily have to adhere to my way of doing things; it’s also good for my work to take this kind of turn. If this leads to my works and exhibition being presented in a whole new format, I couldn’t ask for more. 

Will the upcoming exhibition at the MMCA take the form of a retrospective?

Yes. We’re still discussing the details, but it will be closer to a retrospective. Part 2 of the exhibition will be held at the Daegu Art Museum in the fall of 2025. I didn’t intend on dividing the exhibition into two parts, but since it summarizes my half-century-long career, I naturally came to meld the propositions of the two museums. I won’t be directly involved in the organization of either; I believe the museum staff will do their due diligence. This is the way I live my life and how the art world progresses. The staff are asking for my opinions on issues like what to call the exhibition, but I plan to just trust them with it. People around me say that this solo exhibition is a gift for my 80th birthday and 51st anniversary as a painter, but personally I’m just glad for the opportunity to be picked apart. It will be closer to a retrospective, but I’ll also be presenting new works.