NYAB Event - Jungjin Lee “Untitled”

Jungjin Lee “Untitled”

Fridman Gallery

This event has ended.

Trees rooted (American Deserts), things floating (Thing), the body as part of and separate from the landscape (Wasteland), weightless pagodas (Pagodas), and here, repetitive scenes of the water and its surroundings (Untitled). Whatever the subject, Jungjin Lee’s pictures resonate. They are at once calming and disquieting. How do we fit in to this incomprehensible thing we call the universe? We feel empty but not, we’re alone but not, we’re sometimes at the edge, but of what? It has to do with the vastness of nature and the inability to understand time, Lee reminds us. The concept seems concrete because we can ask the questions, but it ends up being abstract because we can’t find the answers. All we can do is to keep seeking, in an effort to find a certain comfort level.

Jungjin Lee was born in Korea in 1961 and currently lives and works in New York City. Lee’s work has been exhibited widely in the United States, Europe, and Korea. Lee has published many books including Wind (2009), Jungjin Lee (2006), Thing (2005), Desert (2002), On Road/Ocean (2001), Jungjin Lee: Beyond Photography (2000), Wasteland (1997), and Lonely Cabin in a Far Away Island (1988). Her work is included in important collections such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. Her work is also in many major private collections.