Installation view of Body as Thought by Lee Kun-Yong

Installation view, Lee Kun-Yong: Body as Thought, Feb 5 – Mar 28, 2026, Pace Gallery, Seoul © Lee Kun-Yong

Lee Kun-Yong

Body as Thought

On View
Feb 5 – Mar 28, 2026
Seoul
 
 
Pace will present Body as Thought, a solo exhibition by Lee Kun-Yong, a central figure in Korean experimental art, at its Seoul gallery from February 5 to March 28.

Organized in celebration of the artist’s 50-year career, this presentation brings together key historical archives—including early performance videos, photographs, and working notes from the mid-1970s—alongside paintings. Centering on Lee’s decades long inquiries into “the body and logic,” the exhibition reexamines the significance of his work within the broader development of Korean avant-garde art.

In 1970s Korea, artistic meaning and intent were often easily reduced to political interpretation amid conditions of strict control and censorship. Within this context, Lee deliberately avoided approaches grounded in emotion, expression, or overt messaging. Instead, he established logical structures based on conditions and rules, which he then carried out through the body. “Subverting mechanisms of control was the only way for me to express, represent, and inscribe myself within those altered spaces of lives, where systems and authority had appropriated and invalidated public discursive capabilities,” he has said.

From the mid-1970s onward, he began to engage the body as a medium, referring to each action not as a “performance” but as an “Event,” and later as a “Logical Event.” Everyday actions such as walking, eating, and moving one’s hands were not spontaneous gestures, but executions designed to test how relationships between body, space, and time operate. These actions unfolded as formal experiments that made those relationships visible, and Lee continued to extend this line of inquiry across a wide range of media.

Pace’s exhibition in Seoul focuses on photographs, artist notes, and video works. For Lee, documentation of his performances is a vital phase of the work in which the established logic can be reread and reconfigured. Rather than remaining fixed events of the past, his performances pose new questions for the contemporary moment, inviting varied interpretations and readings through their structures and records.

The gallery’s show features videos of the premieres of Same Area (1975) and Indoor Measurement (1975), Lee’s first two major performance works, both of which debuted at Baekrok Gallery in Seoul on April 19, 1975. These seminal performances begin with simple rules—in which the artist measures the length and area of the given space—and unfold through repetitive actions such as folding and unfolding paper or cutting and connecting tape, logically articulating the relationships between space, the body, and objects. The exhibition also includes photographs documenting performances such as The Biscuit Eating (1977), Fence Inside a Gallery (1977), and Logic of the Hand 3 (1975), images that are being presented publicly for the first time at Pace. Together, these works shed new light on the logical experiments Lee initiated in the 1970s and continues exploring in his practice today. During the run of the exhibition, Lee will also present two live performances at the gallery—further details about these events will be announced in due course.

 
 
Lee Kun-Yong: Striking a Match

Films

Lee Kun-Yong: Striking a Match

Considered a key figure of the AG (Korean Avant-Garde Association) as well as a founding member of the ST (Space & Time) group, Lee has cultivated his highly experimental practice since the 1970s, enacting performances that consist of simple, repeated physical actions that produce varied marks. One such performance, Striking a Match, involves pouring a book of matches on the table, striking and burning them one by one. Documentation of Striking a Match and other performances features in Lee Kun-Yong: Body as Thought.

 

Featured Works

Lee Kun-Yong,
Logic of Hands 3
1975/2026, set of 2 archival pigment prints, performance instructions signed by the artist, 120 cm × 120 cm (47-1/4" × 47-1/4"), each image 123.6 cm × 123.6 cm × 4.8 cm (48-11/16" × 48-11/16" × 1-7/8"), each frame
$30,000 USD
Lee Kun-Yong,
Drinking Water
1975/2026, set of 3 archival pigment prints, performance instructions signed by the artist, 27 cm × 40 cm (10-5/8" × 15-3/4"), each image 28.1 cm × 40.6 cm × 3 cm (11-1/16" × 16" × 1-3/16"), each frame
$20,000 USD
Lee Kun-Yong,
Five Steps
1975/2026, set of 6 archival pigment prints, performance instructions signed by the artist, 50 cm × 50 cm (19-11/16" × 19-11/16"), each image 51.5 cm × 51.5 cm × 3 cm (20-1/4" × 20-1/4" × 1-3/16"), each frame
Lee Kun-Yong,
The Biscuit Eating
1977/2026, set of 3 archival pigment prints, performance instructions signed by the artist, 70 cm × 46.5 cm (27-9/16" × 18-5/16"), each image
Lee Kun-Yong,
Striking a Match
1975/2026, set of 3 archival pigment prints, performance instructions signed by the artist, 27 cm × 40 cm (10-5/8" × 15-3/4"), each image 28.1 cm × 40.6 cm × 3 cm (11-1/16" × 16" × 1-3/16"), each frame
Lee Kun-Yong,
Bodyscape 76-2-95-01
1995, acrylic on canvas, 260.6 cm × 162.2 cm (8' 6-5/8" × 63-7/8")
Lee Kun-Yong,
Snail's Gallop, 2022 (11-6)
2022, acrylic paint on wooden panel, 183 cm × 120 cm (72-1/16" × 47-1/4")
Lee Kun-Yong,
Bodyscape 76-1-2012
2012, acrylic on canvas, 46 cm × 33 cm (18-1/8" × 13")
 
 
EXHIBITION DETAILS

Lee Kun-Yong
Body as Thought
Feb 5 – Mar 28, 2026

GALLERY

267 Itaewon-ro
Yongsan-gu
Seoul