Planning the Research Volume
The Persistence of the Moment: THE MOMENT NOT A MOMENT
AeKyung Won (Curator, Guest Director of PROJECT)
I.
This research volume brings together a collection of in-depth scholarly essays that build upon the academic symposium held in conjunction with Lee Yong Deok’s Inverted Sculpture - The Persistence of the Moment: THE MOMENT NOT A MOMENT. The symposium explored Lee’s sculptural world and conceptual framework, and this book extends that inquiry through a deeper and more comprehensive lens. The essays examine the defining features of Inverted Sculpture—its aesthetic perspective within the context of art history, the interplay between photography and descriptive representation, and its pioneering expansion into new domains of visual perception and cognition. By analyzing these aspects from multiple angles—including the formal principles and critical reception of Lee’s work—this volume aims to advance a fuller understanding of Inverted Sculpture as an original expressive form not previously identified in the history of art.
Since first experimenting with Inverted Sculpture in 1984, Lee Yong Deok has continued to create and exhibit works in this distinctive mode for over four decades. This volume seeks to trace the structure of his thought as expressed through the unique form of Inverted Sculpture—examining his realist techniques for representing the human figure, his diverse formal experiments, and the aesthetic evolution found in his later works. In doing so, it aims to uncover the shared realm of subjective emotions and reflections between artist and viewer, as mediated through his sculptural language.
Lee Yong Deok’s Inverted Sculpture depicts the human figure as a concave form receding into a flat surface. The figure is rendered with meticulous sculptural detail, while the plane it occupies—the background—is often composed of simplified, painterly elements. His sculptural representations of the human form are achieved through traditional, classical handcraft techniques, demonstrating a level of artisanal mastery that is rare in today’s art world. At the same time, he actively incorporates various media—most notably, the principles and phenomena of photography—into his work, establishing a new and distinctive sculptural format in contemporary art. The human figure frequently takes center stage in his Inverted Sculptures, reflecting his intent to explore philosophical questions through the fleeting expressions of human presence. His sustained interest in the human form is a foundation of his artistic world, as he revealed in a recent interview: “If I could create only one final work before I die, what would I make? When I asked myself that question, I realized I wanted to portray the human being. I wanted to express the inner essence of humanity, to create something in which the existential meaning or value embedded in each fleeting moment is made visible.”
This volume brings together a wide range of perspectives from leading contemporary art theorists and curators, all centered on Lee Yong Deok’s Inverted Sculpture. Through these collected essays, we hope to offer a deeper understanding of the historical significance of his unique sculptural language, as well as the achievements and meanings of his experimental practice, which bridges tradition and contemporary art.
We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to Total Museum of Contemporary Art for their collaboration throughout every stage of this publication, and to the scholars who contributed their insights to the study of Lee Yong Deok’s Inverted Sculpture despite their demanding schedules.
Ⅱ.
In June 2024, the Total Museum of Contemporary Art hosted the curated exhibition The Persistence of the Moment: THE MOMENT NOT A MOMENT. This solo exhibition brought together a comprehensive selection of Lee Yong Deok’s representative works and drawings, showcasing his distinctive sculptural form known as Inverted Sculpture, through which he has actively engaged with both the Korean and international art worlds. Marking a significant milestone, the exhibition offered a holistic view of Lee’s artistic trajectory spanning over forty years, beginning with his first experiments with Inverted Sculpture in 1984, and was accompanied by an academic symposium, adding to its meaningful impact.
As is well known, Lee pioneered a unique and original sculptural language—his very own formal invention, Inverted Sculpture—through which he has visualized the coexistence of opposing concepts such as “concave and convex,” “yin and yang,” “reality and unreality,” “presence and absence.” While traditional sculpture presupposes that form (figure) must be constructed through a three-dimensional mass of material, Lee’s Inverted Sculpture overturns this assumption by inverting volume itself: creating a form without actual mass. Through this, he poses fundamental and expansive questions about human perception and existence.
The academic symposium The Persistence of the Moment: THE MOMENT NOT A MOMENT, held in conjunction with the exhibition, brought together several contemporary art theorists who examined Lee’s Inverted Sculpture from multiple perspectives—analyzing its formal originality and contextualizing its significance within the broader currents of art history. The present volume collects the presentations delivered at the symposium along with newly contributed essays, forming a focused study on “Inverted Sculpture and the Artistic World of Lee Yong Deok.”
This volume explores Lee Yong Deok’s artistic world by analyzing his Inverted Sculptures, examining their formal characteristics, and interpreting the theoretical foundations of his practice. A key focus is placed on the unique traits of his work—distinct from any particular school or movement—within the generational context that bridges modern and contemporary Korean art.
Although his use of the human body as a primary subject, along with its realistic mode of representation, may outwardly suggest a classical orientation, a closer look at the precise logic and conceptual framework underlying his work reveals a strong affinity with the principles of conceptual art.
“I create my work in an effort to capture the fleeting moments of individuals before they vanish into the past—to preserve that moment eternally. In my work, what matters is not the unique personal identity of each individual, but rather the identity of action they embody in that particular moment. I want to preserve the fading past of these disappearing figures within the artwork, so that they may remain with us—forever in the present. The persistence of the moment, to me, is the attempt to render a past moment as a tangible presence within the spatiotemporal condition of the present—sustaining it in a state beyond time and space.”[1]
— Lee Yong Deok
From a technical perspective, Lee Yong Deok’s Inverted Sculpture takes the form of a concave shape—negative space carved inward from a flat surface. However, it produces a visual illusion in which the figure appears as a positive, protruding relief. In other words, although the sculpture is incised as a recessed form, it is perceived as possessing volume—a distinctive technique that inverts the expected relationship between concave and convex. This reversal technique generates the effect of an outward projection through a surface carved inward. It is a striking conceptual breakthrough that overturns the conventional assumption that sculpture must inherently be three-dimensional and positive in form.
This unusual sculptural format—unlike anything found in previous art history—creates a shifting optical illusion in which concave appears convex, depending on the viewer’s movement, distance, and lighting conditions. This variable perceptual reversal stands as one of the most defining expressive techniques of his work.
This book addresses the major theoretical concerns surrounding Inverted Sculpture. While it is not possible to cover every contribution by the various scholars within the limited space, Professor Chung Yeon Shim focuses on the concave aspect of Inverted Sculpture—namely, the notion of the “trace”—as a key formal element. She interprets it through the concept of indexicality, analyzing the sculptural form as an indexical sign of a narrative presence, and situates Lee’s work in a critical relationship with Marcel Duchamp within the broader flow of art history. In summary, she explores how Duchamp’s work and Lee Yong Deok’s Inverted Sculpture share a similar principle of indexical “informince.” Duchamp’s informince involves capturing what is momentary and fleeting—something that eludes the naked eye and only exists in passing—while Lee’s informince is manifested through an indexical panorama that takes sculptural form as Inverted Sculpture. What makes Lee’s work compelling, she argues, is precisely this indexical character. It opens a conceptual and visual rupture within the representational logic of Korean figurative sculpture and traditional depictions of the human body. Lee is deeply interested in this very fissure.
Through the preceding discussion, we can see how Lee Yong Deok’s unique methodology is articulated via the concept of indexicality embedded in his sculpture, and through the "inverted image" (yeoksang) inscribed on the surface of the sculpture as a linear temporality defined by the present.
In addition, Kate Lim describes Lee’s Inverted Sculpture as “2.5-dimensional sculpture” in her critical essay, which reads as follows:
“Inverted Sculpture feels like a sculpture dreaming of painting, and a painting dreaming of sculpture. His works, which reflect the mechanism of memory, cannot be explained within the conventional framework of three-dimensional sculpture. When concavity reveals itself as convex illusion, we encounter an image that resembles a painting—composed of delicate shading and contours. On the three-dimensional backdrop of the sunken form, Lee combines elements such as angle, depth, and color to create a spatial intensity stronger than that of painting. While the two-dimensional depth in painting remains static, the dimensionality of Inverted Sculpture appears and disappears depending on the viewer’s position—it is a ‘living organism.’”
Lee Yong Deok’s Inverted Sculpture is structured around a paradoxical interdependence in which “presence” (yuu) is attested through “absence” (muu). Rather than dividing the two as opposites, his work presents a simultaneous structure of presence and absence. In doing so, the “captured moment” from ordinary individuals does not merely brush the surface of consciousness and disappear into the past, but instead remains—enduring within the present we inhabit.
The title of this volume, The Persistence of the Moment: THE MOMENT NOT A MOMENT, encapsulates the artist’s intention: to capture ephemeral moments from human life and allow them to persist in the condition of the present. His work is rooted in moments observed in the lives of ordinary people—such as the vibrant movements of pedestrians or the flowing folds of clothing wrapped around their bodies in motion—and seeks to transform these captured instants into a sustained present state. Borrowing from the film theory of philosopher Gilles Deleuze, this practice does not reconstruct everyday images into a linear narrative, but rather renders them as a single spatiotemporal crystal fixed in the present.
Ⅲ.
Lee Yong Deok has developed a distinctive and original artistic world through an active career that spans both Korean and international contemporary art scenes. His work has garnered significant attention through major exhibitions at venues such as the Schaulager Museum in Berlin, the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, the Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, the Macau Museum of Art, and the Seoul Museum of Art, among many others. As a sculptor, Lee demonstrates a remarkably broad spectrum—ranging from traditional monumental sculpture to contemporary experimental installations. He has also created numerous important public works, including statues of historical figures such as Ahn Jung-geun (Namsan, Ahn Jung-geun Memorial Hall), Yu Gwan-sun (Sam-il Park), Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, and Pope Francis (Myeongdong Cathedral), as well as the Chung Ju-yung and Chung Shin-yung Brother monument (Kwanhoon Club), among many others. These artistic experiences ultimately come to face us from the viewer’s perspective—situated within the very spaces they inhabit.
One of Lee Yong Deok’s earliest and most notable public artworks, a statue of white horses leaping (1991), the symbolic tower of Soongsil University, was created when he was still a young artist in his thirties. To produce the work, he traveled to Carrara, Italy, where he sculpted it in Bianco marble before transporting and installing it in Seoul. This monumental marble sculpture, executed with traditional sculpting techniques, embodies a powerful formal expression. It presents a dynamic composition of leaping white horses, achieving a balance between large-scale presence and intricate detail. Beyond its technical accomplishment, the work vividly conveys a sense of “advancement, leap, and ascent” through the energetic motion of a galloping herd—symbolizing an aspirational momentum toward an ideal future. The piece is remarkable for the realism and vitality captured in the horses’ taut muscles and skeletal structures, expressing a forceful dynamism.
The marble surface is carved with a rough, tension-filled technique, and the powerful, precise depiction of the horses’movements and musculature reveals both exceptional anatomical understanding and aesthetic interpretation.
This work is significant as it exemplifies Lee’s attempt to reinterpret traditional classical sculpture within a contemporary context—demonstrating both his sculptural technique and his articulation of space and time.
The gradually expanding structure of the work symbolizes the growth and development of university students as they move toward the future. Formally, the break at the center of the sculpture represents the divided history of Korea, evoking the national division between North and South. Yet, the continued outward expansion of the form also reflects the history of the university—originally founded in Pyongyang and later rebuilt in Seoul—while signifying the present as a bridge to the future. This work envisions and expresses hope for a unified future despite the ongoing reality of division.
Another notable aspect of Lee Yong Deok’s work is his use of the “silhouette” as a sculptural concept that runs in parallel with his Inverted Sculpture. As the negative and positive converge onto a flat surface, the resulting silhouette represents a sculptural phenomenon that simultaneously contains both concavity and convexity.
In works that incorporate this silhouette-based concept through accumulation techniques, encounter–submission (2014), exhibited in Beijing, is particularly noteworthy. For this work, Lee assembled 500 MDF panels at the 798 Art Factory, which were later disassembled and returned to their raw state after the exhibition. A related piece, encounter 2017, a public sculpture produced in Pohang, was created by stacking 16mm-thick steel plates using a stack-sculpture method. Its material composition and formal approach stand out as a unique case in public art, extending Lee’s consistent exploration of the coexistence of presence and absence, of negative and positive, now expressed through the motif of the silhouette within the public realm.
A more recent example is the great convergence (2023), permanently installed in front of ROKAUS in Yongsan. This work expresses the image of a soldier using only four straight bars stacked in a simple vertical structure, which creates a silhouette visible from all four sides. The sculpture is characterized by the fact that its appearance shifts dramatically depending on lighting conditions and the viewer’s position. As an outdoor installation, it reflects Lee’s unique formal experimentation: by simply accumulating a single sculptural element, the silhouette emerges and transforms with the viewer’s gaze. The fact that such complexity and delicacy of form is achieved through such simplicity demonstrates the originality of Lee’s expression. This work is significant in that it presents a sculptural achievement fundamentally different from that of traditional three-dimensional sculpture.
Research is also underway on the necessary contextual relationship between Lee’s Inverted Sculpture and the silhouette, even within the domain of public art. These expanding and transforming approaches are expected to contribute to a critical reevaluation of his position within the field of contemporary art.
One of the defining features of Lee Yong Deok’s work is the sense of the artist’s hand—the tactile connection between hand and clay—that shapes the human form. The physical materiality of clay, coexisting and expanding alongside cutting-edge media-based expression, adds to the compelling nature of his work.
The art-historical significance examined through Lee Yong Deok’s exhibition and the accompanying symposium can be understood as having provided the necessary foundation for this publication. A brief summary of that foundation can be outlined as follows:
1. In terms of expressive form, technique, and material, Lee Yong Deok maintains a highly distinctive artistic language that does not conform to the dominant trends of contemporary art. Despite the fact that many of the qualities found in his work are considered taboo in the contemporary art scene, his practice has nonetheless drawn significant interest and acclaim. This raises the question of how and why such reception has occurred, and invites a critical examination of its underlying basis.
2. As a uniquely original method of expression not previously found in art history, Lee’s Inverted Sculpture—first developed around 1984 and refined through decades of experimentation—warrants an objective aesthetic analysis and clarification of its position within the art historical context. The emergence and evolution of this form, now named “Inverted Sculpture,” call for a systematic account of its significance.
3. While Inverted Sculpture is the most prominent expressive form associated with Lee’s work, it also demonstrates an intrinsic relationship with the sculptural concept of the silhouette. This formal and visual duality invites discourse not only within the field of visual art, but also in relation to other disciplines such as philosophy, science, and cognitive psychology. The insights developed through this research are thus expected to encourage future interdisciplinary inquiry.
The publication of this research volume, The Persistence of the Moment: THE MOMENT NOT A MOMENT, offers an opportunity to reflect on the delicate expression of everyday memories that tend to fade into oblivion, and to engage with Lee Yong Deok’s philosophical exploration of the idea that “to empty is also to fill.” It is hoped that this shared understanding will deepen appreciation for the enduring presence of the moment in his work.
----------------------------------------
About the Contributor :
AeKyung Won received her BFA in Fine Art from Pratt Institute in New York and holds a PhD in Fine Art from Hongik University in Korea. She is an artist who has held over 31 solo exhibitions and regularly collaborates with other artists through group exhibitions. She has served as a visiting head curator and planning director at many prominent galleries, and is a member of the Executive Committee of the ERD Formative Art Research Institute.
Her career highlights include acting as director of the Choi Man Lin Studio, the eponymous studio of the late Choi Man Lin, one of South Korea’s most prominent sculptors, from 2012 to 2020. She has also played a key role in supporting Lee Yong Deok’s acclaimed exhibition, The Persistence of the Moment: THE MOMENT NOT A MOMENT.
[1] Interview with Lee Yong Deok, 2024.