VENUE

Marina Bay Sands, Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Singapore 

LEE Kuang-Yu

Lee Kuang-Yu was born in 1954 in Taiwan. In the early 1970, he entered the Department of Sculpture of the ational Institute of the Arts (predecessor of the National Taiwan University of Arts). Following graduation in 1975, he went to Spain to study western sculptural technique and theory in Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando and Universidad Complutense de Madrid respectively and studied with celebrated sculptor Toledo. On returning to Taiwan, he taught at the Taipei National University of the Arts and the National Taiwan University of Arts, retiring in 2006 to devote himself to his work. Lee Kuang-Yu’s creations crosses cultural and historical boundaries, representing a cultural marker in which traditional Buddhist and Daoist thought intertwines with modernism. His work cannot be assigned to any usual stylistic category. Instead, his works create a unique language with his incomparable skill, style and materials which in turn embodies the complex nature of Taiwanese art while representing the essence of Taiwanese culture. On the level of sculptural language, his work opens up the enclosed structure of sculpture with his characteristic techniques. It creates the unique form, style, and concept of the “void,” and demonstrates “the concept of silent void in the Oriental culture” that embodies the state of unifying the object and the self. It not only displays aesthetic values but also reveals the artist’s contemplation on the state of life at that moment, conveying contemporary social implications. His work has previously been exhibited in New York, Venice, Spain, Austria, Japan and Singapore. His works can be seen in the public spaces or National Taiwan University Hospital MRT station, on Civic Boulevard, and at National University of Kaohsiung. Within Taiwan, three major galleries have collected many of his works. LEE Kuang-Yu was officially invited by the San Marino Pavilion to hold a solo exhibition: To Have and Have Not at 57th Venice Biennale in 2017 and got the praises from the Venice Biennale jury committee.