Sang Nam Lee lures viewers with geometric patterns

New York-based Korean artist’s work to be on permanent display at new Polish international airport


An artwork by a Korean artist will be put up for permanent display at the new airport in the Polish city of Poznan this fall, making it the second art piece to be installed at a foreign airport by a Korean artist.

New York-based Korean artist Sang Nam Lee will showcase the 73-meter-wide and 3-meter-long art installation, called “Landscapic Algorithm,” in September when the third Mediations Biennale-Poznan starts.

Having been invited to the biennale as participant artist, Lee wanted to display his work in a big public place.

“I was interested in displaying my work at a big public place and the biennale organizers proposed public museums and libraries as candidate places. But what drew my attention was the airport that was about to be finished,” said Lee in the recent interview with The Korea Herald. 

Korean artist Kang Ik-joong’s work has been displayed at the San Francisco International Airport since 2000.

Lee is one of about 100 artists invited to the biennale to be held in Poznan from Sept. 14-Oct. 14.

But to make it the permanent feature of the airport, he needed approval from the architect Piotr Brelkowski, who designed the airport.

“He loved my work because my work fit in with the airport well,” he said.

The “Landscapic Algorithm” series, started in 2006, features abstract figures consisting of circles and lines.

Painted with acrylic urethane paint on stainless steel, the artwork looks like the smooth and shiny surface of car.

Thanks to the geometric shapes and polished look, his piece is a perfect match for modern architecture. His works are hung at galleries designed by world famous architects such as Rem Koolhass, who designed the Museum of Art at Seoul National University, and Steven Holl, who designed Lee’s art gallery in New York.

“My imagination comes from architecture blueprints which are left unnoticed by architects after they are done with a building project,” said Lee.

His other works are displayed at major galleries including Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Art at Seoul National University and LIG Insurance’s staff training center in Korea.

Though the series title hints at his work being nature-inspired, Lee’s inspiration comes not from nature, but everyday objects surrounding us.

“My paintings are inspired not from nature, but from artificial shapes formed by human imagination,” Lee said.

“I can say artificial objects are of natural products in a sense,” he added.

Lee tries to overcome the shrinking influence of fine art amidst swarms of commercial visual materials.

“There are so many visual materials that people can watch these days, which reduces people’s interest in fine arts. In this trend, it is important to have an attractive factor that can make viewers stay in front of my work for more than five seconds,” Lee stressed.

Pursuing a new ground for paintings, Lee said he stands in between design and art, Modernism and Post Modernism, and analog and digital to seek a middle place where he can have much freedom to demonstrate his vision and appeal to viewers as well.

“And fine arts has more room for self-expression than other fields like design and architecture, especially when it has irrational and fantastical aspects,” said Lee who named his works “installation paintings” in line with the idea.

The artist also admits that his paintings have “New York aspects” in which the classical and high-tech collapse, and create an image that people are not easily fed up with.

“A high-tech image works well in Seoul, but also in New York which still has dark alleys and old buildings. The shock of mixing the classical and high-tech factors creates a surrealistic feeling,” Lee explained. “And that is the start of my artistic imagination.”

But Lee said he did not intend to deliver difficult philosophies to viewers.

“If my message is heavy enough to burden the viewers, it is another form of imprisonment. Artists don’t have to speak heavy because that is another form of violation. It’s important to attract people to my exhibition. That’s all,” he stressed.

“It is the magic of public art that an artist can meet as many people as possible,” he said.

By Lee Woo-young  (wylee@heraldcorp.com)