Lee
Yongbaek received his BFA in Painting from the College of
Fine Arts, Hongik University, Seoul, in 1990. He later studied at the
Staatliche Akademie der bildenden Künste Stuttgart in Germany, completing Freie
Malerei in 1993 and earning his MFA in Bildhauerei in 1995. Since then, he has
been actively engaged in exhibitions and projects both in Korea and
internationally.
Maehyangri Studio in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, announced on the
28th that it is holding a solo exhibition titled 《Korean Mosaic》 by media artist Yongbaek Lee
through March 4.
Lee explained, “In the exhibition title ‘Korean Mosaic,’ ‘Korean’
refers to the social existence upon which we stand, while ‘mosaic’ signifies
the artist’s critical perspective on the relationships between media,
technology, and humanity.”
Maehyangri Studio is a remodeled former chapel of Maehyang Church,
where residents once gathered to pray for an end to the deafening noise of U.S.
military fighter jets. The artist stated that by applying the mosaic method to
the exterior walls of the studio building, he sought to express the painful
history of Maehyangri that had been obscured and erased beneath the roar of
bomber aircraft.
The exhibited ‘Drone Photo’ series expresses the silhouette of
stealth bombers, while the work A Secret Everyone Knows recreates
in three-dimensional sculpture the portion of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that
is concealed on Naver Maps for reasons of military confidentiality.
An official from the Gyeonggi Creation Center commented, “Yongbaek
Lee, who represented Korea at the 2011 Venice Biennale, has presented works in
this exhibition that embody the history and emotional landscape of Maehyangri.”
