The Life and Art of Lee Yong Deok: Where Do His Works Come From?
- Shaping Humanity at the Intersection of Time and Space
Cho Sang In (Director, Art Policy Institute, The Seoul Economic Daily)
Raised with Clay, Pockets Inside Out
“It happened when I was a child, but I still remember it clearly: how large the original film plates were about the size of an adult’s palm and the sight of my father gently retouching the negatives with the tip of a finely sharpened pencil. ‘When you draw on the film like this,’ he’d say, ‘it shows up white in the final print.’ I can still picture him, performing a kind of handcrafted Photoshop with that pointed pencil.”
If artistic talent can be inherited, then surely Lee Yong Deok owes something to the influence of his father, who worked with photographs.
“My father was always in the center of the room, reading. His calligraphy was so beautiful that his handwriting could be found in homes all over the neighborhood. I once said, ‘Isn’t it a waste to just give that away?’ and he replied, ‘Those with talent are meant to serve those without.’”
Lee recalled these words when he received the 25th Kim Se-Choong Sculpture Award in 2011. Quoting his father, he evoked not only the noblesse oblige of his teacher and senior sculptor Kim Se-Choong, but also the ethos of a life dedicated to “creating something for those who find joy in my work, using whatever gifts I have.”
Talent did not necessarily lead to money. In the poverty-stricken daily life of Korea during the 1960s and ’70s, the responsibility of managing a modest household fell to the mother. She had a particular gift for jogakbo, traditional patchwork—cutting and arranging leftover scraps of fabric into composed designs. Each added piece enhanced the aesthetic. As the youngest, Lee Yong Deok would later come to realize that his mother had used her skillful hands to sew clothes for all four sons and one daughter. It was a time when poverty, which might have been a source of shame, instead became something of pride, adorned with a unique sense of beauty.
Lee inherited his father’s precision and thoughtful philosophy, and his mother’s aesthetic sense and manual dexterity.
It is not uncommon for an artist’s core concept to echo a forgotten childhood memory. Lee Yong Deok was born and raised in Hongje-dong, Seodaemun District, Seoul. At the time, there were only a few scattered houses among wide vegetable fields. At the meeting point where a mountain stream joined the Hongjecheon, fine clay would accumulate. That muddy field was young Lee’s playground. With the soft soil, he molded people, tanks, and more. He was called home when meals were ready, and at night he would fall asleep wondering whether the things he had shaped had dried or cracked. He was also good at drawing, sometimes scratching into the dirt with a wooden stick, and at other times building up the clay to form bas-relief images.
He was about ten years old when this memory was formed: on impulse, he turned his indoor shoe bag inside out. The square fabric bag with a handle reversed completely, revealing stitches and loose threads, but retaining its shape. He pulled the pockets from inside his pants outward and even turned his socks inside out. He realized that even when the inside and outside were reversed, the form remained unchanged. That moment of wonder still lingers clearly in his mind. One might imagine that it was here the concept of “Inverted Sculpture,” as a “reversed existence,” first began to take root. With such a childhood, entering art school and becoming an artist seemed only natural.
The Study of the Human Body and the Objectification of Form
In March 1977, Lee Yong Deok entered the Department of Sculpture at Seoul National University. There, he studied under leading figures of Korean modernism, including Kim Se-choong, Choi Man Lin, Choi Jong Tae, Choi Eui Soon, and Um Tai-jung. He learned to delve into the objective realms of form and structure, as well as prevailing aesthetic principles cultivating an attitude of carving out one’s own artistic path through deep inquiry into the sculptural world.
Thematically, his primary focus was the human body, a consistent interest that had accompanied him since childhood.
“The human body, in and of itself, contains an enormous amount of information. That’s what I try to sculpt. The moment I look at a person, perhaps because I have a habit of close observation, I can sense the body, the fabric on that body, the folds in the fabric, even the movement of wind across those folds. I believe that the amount of information I’ve observed is directly reflected in the sculpture, which is why the work feels ‘real.’ Tension, density, and other layers of information begin with observation, and observation stems from affection. Thought and observation are the foundation of everything—and so the human body reveals a love for humanity. But I never wanted to distort the human form through the filter of emotion. If Vincent van Gogh was a master of emotional and sensory observation, I’ve always leaned more toward analytical, objective observation.”
This analytical approach to the human form led him beyond the visible to a yearning for the “invisible,” the things that make form appear as form. What is it that we see? And what exactly is it that appears? Reflecting on his twenties, Lee remarked, “When I work with the human body, what I seek to sense is not just the form itself. I try to grasp the vitality embedded within the form, or the temporal compression that exists within a given moment.” The idea of “the eternity held within a moment” became a central theme in his thinking. When fragrance is too strong, form becomes hard to perceive. He believed that if content overwhelms, form disappears. It was for this reason that he chose to focus on “moments of everyday life,” immersing himself in the identity those moments carry. Spending the 1980s “studying how the human body, as an objective subject, is perceived in terms of form,” he developed a practice that through using the body as subject matter came closer in spirit to conceptual art.
“The distortions and traces that emerge through applied force are, strictly speaking, physical phenomena. But I also tried to approach sculpture as a kind of chemical reaction—where such formal combinations could spark a third realm of imagination or interpretation.”
It was during this period that Lee Yong Deok received major recognition for two consecutive years at a prestigious national juried competition—the Grand Art Exhibition of Korea, regarded as the successor to the Gukjeon (National Art Exhibition). In 1986, at the 5th Grand Art Exhibition of Korea, he was awarded the Excellence Prize. At the time, overseas travel was restricted for most Korean citizens, and only the Grand Prize winner was granted a rare opportunity to travel abroad as part of the award. That incentive was the sole reason he entered the competition. Disappointed at missing the top prize, he submitted his work again the following year. On the day he went to deliver his submission, he happened to run into his friend, the sculptor Ryu In (1956–1999), who teased him, “Why are you submitting again? You already won the Excellence Prize,” half-scolding, half-joking. It was in that very year—1987—that Lee Yong Deok won the Grand Prize in the sculpture category at the 6th Grand Art Exhibition of Korea.
“The work that received the award, take a commemorative photo, was based on a real photo of five girls. I sculpted their bodies in a realistic style and enclosed the figures within a frame that hinted at the photographic origin. As a result, the real image (silsang) came to feel like an illusion (heosang).”
What he sculpted was not merely the girls themselves, but the fleeting moment they occupied.
Breaking Away from Figurative Sculpture: The Hyun-Sang Jeon
From the mid-1980s—more precisely, from 1986 to 1991, there was one annual group exhibition that sculptor Lee Yong Deok never missed: Hyun-Sang Jeon (現像展). To understand why, it is necessary to revisit the social and cultural atmosphere of Korea in the 1980s. Behind the rapid economic growth lay a mounting desire for democratization, resistance against the military regime, and a growing labor movement all of which contributed to a heightened sense of civic consciousness and a demand for social justice. The widespread adoption of television accelerated the rise of popular culture, and with the influx of Western influences came an increasing awareness of diversity. As the economy surged, so too did progress in Korea’s political, social, and cultural spheres.
In contrast, the art world during this period remained relatively rigid. Since the 1960s, abstract art in a monochromatic style (what is now commonly referred to as Dansaekhwa) had largely dominated the avant-garde. Entering the 1980s, a new wave emerged in the form of Minjung Art, led by collectives like Durung and Reality and Utterance, which voiced a socially conscious and politically engaged form of expression. While modernist abstraction pursued a deeply personal and conceptual realm, Minjung Art emphasized the social role of art: two forces that coexisted uneasily, like oil and water. Abstract artists often leaned toward an elitist modernism, while Minjung artists deliberately employed rough and unrefined techniques to emphasize their political stance and grassroots identity. These stylistic differences were shaped by their respective goals: abstraction aimed for introspective exploration, while Minjung Art was focused on messaging and social engagement. It was in this polarized context of the mid-1980s that a group of younger artists in their thirties sought to assert their own voices. The result was Hyun-Sang Jeon.
“The paintings and sculptures gathered here, while positioned within the broader currents of contemporary art since the 1970s, each offer their own interpretation of the present day. Rather than conforming to or being easily classified by any particular ideology or style, they assert their own distinct perspectives. In an age that has become increasingly mechanical and automated, art may be the final stronghold that still passes through the warmth of the human hand. For that reason, artworks must appear all the more painterly, all the more sculptural—and the role of the hand feels more urgent and resonant than ever. There may be many ways of perceiving and revealing the image (sang, 像) of the present (hyun, 現), but the works assembled here share a common vantage point in figuration, each embodying a unique way of thinking through form.” (Exhibition Statement from the inaugural Hyun-Sang Jeon, opened June 25, 1986, at Kwanhoon Gallery)
Regarding the participating artists of Hyun-Sang Jeon, art critic Jung Byung Kwan remarked, “I would like to call them liberal artists. That’s because they seem to show little inclination toward collective activities such as artistic movements or schools, and in fact, they appear to prefer not belonging to any group at all.”[1] Oh Kwang Su, former director of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, observed: “Distancing themselves from the mainstream of the late 1970s—characterized by conceptual thinking and minimalist expression—this group of young artists hurried toward a kind of visual liberation. Rather than pursuing radical content driven by ideological purpose, they can be seen refining their approach through honest engagement with reality from a fresh visual perspective, and through a recovery of expression freed from conceptual frameworks.”[2] Critic Lee Il noted that apart from their shared interest in figuration, “It’s difficult to assign any uniform or overarching characteristic to these artists.” He encouraged their efforts as an attempt to break through the closed structure of the Korean art world, adding, “The 1980s, unlike the unified direction of the 1970s, came to be marked by complexity and pluralism.” Art critic Kim Bok Young, who closely analyzed the methodologies of the thirty-some participating artists, wrote: “The artists of Hyun-Sang began to pay attention to the situation—from personal concerns to broader social interests. Their situational perspective does not deny essence, but instead suggests that by focusing on the situation that precedes essence, one may come to grasp the essence more clearly. This is what we might call a ‘human intervention’ into the essence that is embedded in the situation; a way of perceiving essence as something immanent within circumstance. In doing so, these artists engage their human and social awareness in interpreting the various phenomena of situations, and from that engagement, they extract forms that articulate the essential condition of the world.”[3]
If one were to categorize the artists of Hyun-Sang Jeon, despite their resistance to any single label, they might be grouped under the term “elite dissidents.” These were artists who, though educated within the mainstream traditions of abstract painting and sculpture, were already seeking to break free from the abstract art establishment. In contrast to the artists of 20th-century avant-garde and abstract movements—who emerged within the ethos of “art for art’s sake” and gradually grew distant from lived reality—Minjung Art argued for reconnecting art with the everyday lives of ordinary people. With its emphasis on political and social engagement, Minjung Art exerted a powerful influence on the younger generation of artists at the time. However, this did not mean that most of these artists immediately aligned themselves with Minjung Art. The movement favored modes of expression and formal strategies that prioritized accessibility and reproducibility—images that anyone could easily understand, imitate, and participate in. Some artists viewed this approach critically, feeling that its pursuit of political and social content came at the expense of artistic integrity and aesthetic depth, even leading to a kind of regression.
It seems almost fated that in 1991, the year of the final Hyun-Sang Jeon, Lee Yong Deok departed for Germany. He was in search of a breakthrough. Among the various countries in Europe, he chose Germany for its emphasis on rigorous thought and objective observation—conditions aligned with the clarity and discipline he was seeking.
The Discovery of Existence and the Moment
March 1992. Lee Yong Deok arrived in Berlin and spent the early spring adjusting to life as a student abroad. One late spring day, while sitting alone in his studio sipping coffee, a thought suddenly came to him:
“Let’s say, starting today, starting from this very moment that I have been newly born into this world. From now on, I won’t call what I do ‘artwork,’ and I won’t refer to what I make as ‘art.’ Let me simply call it an experiment, something I do out of curiosity. If others take what I make and put it in an exhibition and call it ‘art,’ that’s their choice. But I, myself, will not approach it as art.”
He opened his eyes. Slowly, he looked around. As if he had just been born into the world, encountering objects for the first time with no preconceptions. In the corner, a piece of lumber caught his eye about three meters long, covered in a thick layer of dust. He walked over and picked it up. The long wooden beam tilted in his hands. The question “What is this?” was quickly followed by “Why is it tilting?” He made a conscious effort to set aside the knowledge and assumptions he usually took for granted. Fingering the beam, probing it from different angles, he searched for the precise point at which it could be held upright—without leaning, without falling. In that slow, tentative process, he felt a surprising sense of tension arise.
Then he noticed a piece of string. Tying it around the center of the beam, he hung it from the ceiling. Suspended about 10 centimeters above the floor, the horizontal beam held a quiet tension until, slowly, it began to turn.
“I experienced, with my own eyes, what it meant to witness time and space. Until that moment, I had been skeptical of both. But that single suspended beam revealed to me the temporality of change and the shifting nature of space—right before my eyes. In that instant, the artistic and philosophical beliefs I had clung to for so long collapsed. Up until then, I had believed that art must possess a sense of eternity, that it must carry philosophical depth and value, and that it should govern some lofty aspect of human intellect and dignity. But in that moment, I experienced the perfection of the moment itself as sensation. I felt the tension within that moment, and the eternity and permanence that that very tension radiated.”
After that day, the artist stepped away from his earlier preoccupation with classical, monumental sculpture work dominated by conceptual intent. Instead, he began turning toward images and scenes captured in everyday life: snapshots, fleeting photographs that seize a moment. He had come to realize the value of the moment—of sensation itself.
Take, for example, the allure of the olympics, a bronze sculpture from 1986, and beauty shines on people, an Inverted Sculpture installed in 2011 in front of the Cancer Center at Seoul National University Hospital. At a glance, the running figure of the modern man in the former and the wind-blown movement of the woman riding a bicycle in the latter appear outwardly similar; the fluttering garments suggest a shared sense of motion. However, in the allure of the olympics, the artist conveys a deliberate intention: to depict a city dweller crossing through a victorious, monumental moment—namely, the Olympics. By contrast, the cycling woman in beauty shines on people is anonymous. She could be anyone, and the moment could be anytime. In this second case, it is through the act of capturing the moment that the artist secures a sense of permanence. Though the formal language of the two works may not seem drastically different, the conceptual shift between them is striking.
The act of capturing the permanence of the moment—and the cognitive pleasure of sensing and perceiving it—surrounded the artist like a revelation. From this point onward, momentariness became a central concern in Lee Yong Deok’s work. Not universality or concept, but the sincerity of a sensed moment began to take root as a deeper truth in his practice.
In retrospect, Lee Yong Deok’s take a commemorative photo, which won the Grand Prize in sculpture at the 1987 Grand Art Exhibition of Korea, was also a work concerned with the moment captured in a photograph.
“Every moment disappears into the past without rest. Even now, countless moments are vanishing into the past. If we think of the ‘past’ as something hidden behind a massive wall, something no longer visible, then taking a photograph is like opening a small window in that wall. Through that window, I can glimpse a moment that has already disappeared into the past.”
Lee redefined photography in his own conceptual terms. But the physical, material definition of photography remains somewhat different.
“What is it we actually see when we stand before a photograph? A photograph is, quite literally, a piece of printed paper—chemical stains forming an image. Our eyes see that paper, and yet we believe we’re seeing the exact moment from the past when the photograph was taken. In truth, we are still here, firmly in the present. That past moment remains beyond the window, on the other side.”
His reflection on the cross-section of time and the essence of existence grew deeper. Could the beings who exist outside the window of the present—those who belong to the past—somehow be brought into our current moment, into this shared present time?
Thirty-Three Boys in a Flea Market Photograph
One of Lee Yong Deok’s most significant works created during his time in Germany is kl.k.7d.24.10.1920 Berlin. Composed of 33 terracotta sculptures, each about 130 centimeters tall, the work represents young boys. Though it takes the form of figurative sculpture, it operates on a much deeper conceptual level.
In Europe, the neighborhood flea market—known as the Flohmarkt—is part of weekend life. Holding within him the idea of the “eternal moment,” Lee would often browse these markets in search of old photographs. One day, he came across a particular image: a class photo, presumably taken on the first day of elementary school. On the back, along with the date “October 24, 1920,”were the names of all 33 boys pictured.
“They looked to be about six or seven years old, born during the height of the First World War (1914–1918), likely raised in poverty. I’ve read that Berlin, after the war, was quite literally a ruin. And so, in this 1920 photo, the boys appear almost emaciated, as if malnourished. It’s heartbreaking. Even more tragic than that moment, though, is the realization that by the time they reached their twenties, the Second World War had begun—and these boys would have become German soldiers. Some may have died in the war. Some may have killed others, or committed atrocities. Among them, there may have been a Jewish child. And if any survived, perhaps they helped rebuild a broken Germany.”
A single photograph held not only the time before it was taken, but decades of history that followed. And this was not simply the story of another time or another country; it resonated with something far closer to home.
“The thirty-three boys in that flea market photograph felt like they belonged to my father’s generation. My father, born in 1917, came into the world under Japanese colonial rule, endured oppression, lived through the Korean War, and spent his life in a poverty-stricken Korea that would one day grow into what it is today. He was part of a generation that suffered endlessly. That’s when I made up my mind—I would bring these boys into the present.”
To bring children from a past photograph into the present was, for the sculptor, a matter of making them present. His method was to “endow them with materiality.” He carefully studied each face in the photograph and sculpted them individually in plaster. Their bodies, on the other hand, were cast in terracotta using a single mold.
“The boys in the photo, all confined within the same school uniform, would have been educated under a system rooted in national ideology. They likely grew up within that framework and eventually became German soldiers. By using identical molds for their torsos, I wanted to emphasize that these children were shaped under the influence of a propaganda-like education system.”
What mattered was not the form, but the content. The murmured questions he repeated while working—“Do you know what your future holds?”—and the mournful reassurances—“It’s not your fault. Whatever horrors you may have committed later, they were the burden of history, the result of growing up under Hitler’s Germany”—became embedded in the expressions of the figures.
At the Berlin University of the Arts, where Lee was studying, it was customary for art schools to open their studios once or twice a year. These events drew in local residents, art professionals, and regional media.
When Lee had completed about twenty of the thirty-three figures for kl.k.7d.24.10.1920 Berlin, one such open studio took place. Three men in formal suits entered his studio and, to Lee’s surprise, spent a long time standing before the sculptures, engaged in intense discussion. The next day, a local TV crew arrived to cover the work in depth, and soon after, the piece was invited for exhibition at the Schulmuseum (Berlin School Museum).
Alongside the exhibition, Lee also launched an effort to locate surviving individuals from the photograph—men who would now be in their 80s. If even one of them could be found, Lee planned to sculpt their present-day likeness and exhibit it in the adjoining room beside the thirty-three child figures. He was excited by the idea: “Through the coexistence of ‘a past brought into the present’ and ‘a present carved in the present,’ I could create two rooms of the present.” If even a single survivor could be identified, the process of sculpting their present form would become part of the exhibition itself.
Following the radio broadcast and newspaper coverage, phone calls began coming in—almost miraculously—from various places. It was confirmed that at least three of the boys in the photograph were still alive. But soon after, all contact ceased. Lee surmised that the men may have found it too burdensome to revisit their pasts, knowing that any public attention might also expose aspects of their history they would rather keep hidden. He let it go.
“The purpose of this work was to experiment with the possibility of a ‘continuous present’—to draw the present, once captured in a photograph and relegated to the past, back into the now by giving it material form. What I discovered through this experiment was that, through what seems like nonexistence—an illusion, even—I was able to confirm traces of existence.”
Through the series of boy sculptures made in Germany, Lee Yong Deok began to develop a conceptual framework for recording figures who exist in a liminal space between presence and absence—figures that, like photographs, continue to exist in the present. This became a defining idea in his practice of Inverted Sculpture, in which absence—rendered as a recessed, hollowed-out form—reveals presence. The work he produced in Germany marked a turning point: it solidified his commitment to expressing human existence as it unfolds in time and space, and to capturing the eternity contained within a single moment.
The Duality of Silhouette and Existence
Lee Yong Deok returned to Korea. His deep engagement with themes of presence and absence—things that once existed but have now disappeared—continued even after his return. This is why his solo exhibition in 2000 at the Moran Museum of Art in Namyangju, which also served as a homecoming show, was titled BOTH SIDES OF EXISTENCE. The show featured two notable bodies of work: the so-called “Shadow Sculptures,” created using phosphorescent pigment, and “Silhouette Sculptures” made by stacking layers of MDF board.
One room of the exhibition was transformed into a circular darkroom, six meters in diameter. As a viewer entered the space, a sensor triggered a spotlight that began to rotate, casting an intense beam of light that followed behind the viewer, projecting a sharply defined shadow onto the surrounding wall. The artwork, in this case, was the shadow itself. Even as the viewer moved, the shadow remained fixed in place. It was a curious and poetic sight, reminiscent of the scene from Peter Pan and Wendy in which Peter Pan leaves behind only his shadow. Even after the viewer exited, the shadow lingered—until the room darkened once more and the image disappeared. The secret lay in the phosphorescent pigment. What is visible to the eye is not the full story. Phosphorescent materials absorb light when illuminated and gradually emit it in darkness. By coating the walls with this pigment and exposing them to light, then dimming the room again, the surface glows—except for the parts that had been shielded by the viewer’s body, which remain dark. In truth, the shadow was not what remained; rather, it was the surrounding areas that glowed, making it appear as if a shadow had been left behind. And when time passed and the “shadow disappeared,” it was not that the shadow itself had vanished, but that the once-bright surrounding areas had faded back into darkness.
“Shadow Sculpture” operates on the same principle as Lee’s Inverted Sculpture. In the latter, viewers perceive the hollow, recessed void—the absence—as a presence. In the former, they become aware of the silhouette of the shadow, which is not a true shadow at all, but a darkness created by the relative brightness of everything around it.
The same principle applies to the “Silhouette Sculptures.” Lee stacked hundreds of MDF boards, drew the outline of a human figure on either end, and then cut out the section corresponding to the body using a saw. What remained was a silhouette sculpture that looked as if a person had slipped out from within the layered boards. Viewers may say, “There’s a person standing,” or “I can see a face,” but what they are actually seeing is the space of a nonexistence that has been removed. It is the surrounding area that testifies to the trace of that absence.
The Expansion of Inverted Sculpture into China
Lee Yong Deok’s Inverted Sculpture, which has become the artist’s signature, began gaining wide recognition around 2003 and drew particular attention at the 2004 Seoul Media City Biennale at the Seoul Museum of Art. Creating the illusion that a concave surface appears convex, and that empty space seems solid, the work embodies both the Eastern philosophy of yin and yang, the void and the real, as well as the Buddhist idea of “form is emptiness, and emptiness is form.” It offers both visual intrigue and layered conceptual depth.
Sometimes a work, once it leaves the artist’s hands, forges its own path. At an international art fair, a Chinese museum director encountered Lee’s Inverted Sculpture and was deeply impressed. Feng Yuan, then director of the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC)—the only national art museum in the country—and vice chairman of the China Artists Association, was a highly influential figure in Chinese art circles. At Feng’s invitation, Lee Yong Deok held a solo exhibition titled DEPTH OF SHADOW at NAMOC in Beijing in November 2005. The show, exceptional in scale for a foreign artist, drew significant attention and media acclaim, with the press referring to it as an example of “the Korean Wave in Chinese contemporary art.” Following the Beijing exhibition, the show traveled to other cities including Macau and Shanghai. In effect, this series of exhibitions became one of the catalysts for the Korean art world’s broader expansion into China around 2006–2007.
It was during this period, amid the Chinese touring exhibitions, that Lee’s work—previously referred to by terms such as “negative sculpture,” “moving sculpture,” or “optical illusion sculpture”—came to be formally known as Inverted Sculpture. At the opening ceremony of Lee’s solo exhibition at the Macau Museum of Art, held from March to May 2006, the museum’s curator remarked, “None of the existing names truly capture the essence of Lee Yong Deok’s sculpture. The character ‘yeok’ (易), as used in the I Ching, signifies transformation and cyclicality. Since Lee’s work involves appearances and disappearances, presences and absences, the term ‘Inverted’ best encompasses the full scope of the concept.” The comment received enthusiastic agreement from critics and members of the press in attendance, and since then, Inverted Sculpture has become the established name for Lee’s practice.
Lee Yong Deok’s Early Public Art
Art encountered outside of museums often feels more welcoming and familiar. Lee Yong Deok’s works are frequently seen in the context of public art. The light of will (意志의 빛), located in front of the Samtan Building in Daechi-dong, Gangnam, is his first public sculpture and remains there, now for 35 years. In 1988, the year after he won the Grand Prize in sculpture at the National Art Exhibition, Lee was commissioned by Samcheok Tanjwa, an energy company, to create a sculpture to be installed in front of their new headquarters. He studied the company’s identity and philosophy in depth—even visiting the Samcheok coal mines—and completed the work in time for the building’s opening in 1991. The sculpture features two robust male figures, their backs arched like drawn bows, forming a symmetrical shape that evokes a pair of massive wings. Placed on either side like brothers, the two young men represent Samcheok Tanjwa’s co-founders, Chairman Yoo Sung-yeon and Chairman Lee Jang-kyun. The work merges abstraction with figuration, combining human bodies with a geometric linear composition to simultaneously convey a converging image of descent into a mine shaft and a radiating image of light—energy extracted from deep underground.
Religious art is also an inseparable part of Lee Yong Deok’s practice. In his twenties, he was baptized into the Catholic Church under the name “Luca.” At Myeongdong Cathedral, he formed a connection with Father Paul Cho Hak-moon, who was later assigned to lead the construction of a new church in Gonghang-dong, Seoul. When Father Cho sought architectural guidance, Lee introduced him to architect Chung Guyon (1945–2011), who had recently returned from studying in Paris. The church was completed in 1988. As part of this collaboration, Lee created a sculpture of Saint Francis of Assisi, the church’s patron saint, who was known for his life of poverty and compassion. The sculpture depicts the saint sharing food with a dove, emphasizing communication and generosity. He also sculpted two representations of the Virgin Mary: one in the traditional form of the Pietà, where Mary cradles the limp body of Christ, and another for the church courtyard—a more humble and rustic figure, reminiscent of a country maiden, designed to evoke a sense of warmth and familiarity.
The crucifix and the Holy Spirit relief above the altar at St. John’s Catholic Church in Bundang, Seongnam City, Gyeonggi Province, are works by Lee Yong Deok. Constructed in response to the development of the new city, the church began construction in 1994, was completed in 2002, and officially opened in 2003. It draws attention for its grand architectural style, which combines Romanesque elements with modern design, and it is known as the largest Catholic church in Korea. Lee was entrusted with the key artworks of this church, which has since become famous as a space where art and faith are deeply integrated. The golden Jesus figure on the bronze crucifix, created in 2001, is a resurrected Christ, ascending with arms stretched skyward. Unlike traditional crucifixes that portray Jesus with his head bowed and body hanging in pain, Lee’s version presents a hopeful image of resurrection. He also created a six-meter-wide Holy Spirit relief above the altar’s semicircular pediment, depicting a dove as the symbol of the Holy Spirit, radiant beams forming a cross around it, and seven white rays symbolizing the seven sacraments.
Lee also created multiple representations of Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan. Reflecting on the cardinal’s famous words, “Be food for one another,” he sculpted a bust using his Inverted Sculpture technique and donated it to the Sacred Heart Campus of the Catholic University of Korea in Bucheon. At Myeongdong Cathedral, under the Archdiocese of Seoul, a full-length Inverted Sculpture of the cardinal—created to mark the first anniversary of his passing—can be found.
Meanwhile, at Soongsil University in Sangdo-dong, Dongjak District, Seoul, there stands a large marble relief titled a statue of white horses leaping (1991), featuring a herd of the university’s symbolic animal carved in white Carrara marble. The sculpture measures 17.5 meters in length, 4.7 meters in height, and 1.5 meters in thickness, and was produced using marble quarried in Pietrasanta, Italy. The dynamic group of white horses, expressing forward motion, leaping, and ascent, is composed in a format that transitions from relief into full sculpture. It creates a dramatic scene in which the horses seem to break free from the marble, galloping and taking flight. Renowned for its vivid realism and powerful composition, the piece was unveiled in a dedication ceremony—after which Lee Yong Deok departed for his studies in Germany.
Embedding Discourse and Character in Portrait Sculpture
In front of the Yongsan District Office in Itaewon-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, stands a striking blue statue of a figure. At first glance, it may seem like a conventional commemorative monument, but that assumption quickly falls apart upon closer inspection. Only when viewers approach the work do they realize that this towering figure is composed of countless tiny human forms, each only about the size of a finger. The title, Homo Knowledgian, refers to the 21st-century knowledge worker—an individual who actively applies their knowledge in the information age. Whereas the past may have been shaped by singular “great men,” the future is now built collectively. The work emphasizes the importance of collective intelligence and shared progress in contemporary society. It may well be called a “21st-century-style crowd sculpture.”
Commissioning Lee Yong Deok to produce portrait sculptures using his Inverted Sculpture technique was an innovative move. In the lobby of the Kwanhoon Club Shin Young Foundation Hall in Gwanhun-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, stands a double portrait of Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju-yung and his younger brother, journalist Chung Shin-yung, created in 2007. The work was commissioned to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Kwanhoon Club and the 30th anniversary of the Shin Young Research Fund. Initially, the foundation had planned to commission a renowned foreign sculptor—perhaps from France—and had begun researching artists. However, by chance they discovered Lee Yong Deok, and after several rounds of discussion, boldly entrusted the work to a young Korean artist. In addition to the Inverted Sculpture double portrait of the brothers, a bust of Chung Shin-yung is also installed at the site.
At the entrance of the Chung Ju-yung Memorial Hall inside Asan Medical Center in Seoul stands the inverted sculpture of Chung Ju-yung and his wife (2015), an Inverted Sculpture based on a single photograph taken in the 1960s. It captures a tender moment between Chung and his wife, Byun Joong-seok. As viewers move around the work, the perspective subtly shifts—Chung appears to gaze gently at his wife, while she seems to quietly look up at him—offering multiple scenes within a single sculpture.
The inverted sculpture of Park Tae-joon (2012), installed in the first-floor lobby of POSCO Center in Daechi-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, was created to mark the first anniversary of the POSCO founder’s passing. Standing four meters tall, the large-scale Inverted Sculpture depicts Park in his signature look: a fedora and suit. The work gives the impression that he is surveying the building, turning his gaze as the viewer moves—an evocative presence that recalls his leadership in life.
A Monumental Figure That Condenses Spirit into a Single Moment
Creating sculptures of historical figures often led Lee Yong Deok to deeper reflection. His usual practice centers on ordinary, anonymous people, capturing the fleeting nature of a moment. A prime example is beauty shines on people (2011), an Inverted Sculpture installed in front of the Cancer Center at Seoul National University Hospital in Yeongeon-dong, Jongno-gu. The image of a person riding a bicycle, as if cut out from an old black-and-white photograph, evokes a faint, nostalgic sentiment that prompts emotional introspection.
In contrast, commemorative statues of specific individuals are, as the term monumental implies, meant to ensure the long remembrance of someone exceptional, carrying with them a sense of permanence. One such work is the statue of independence activist Ahn Jung-geun, erected in 2010 in front of the Ahn Jung-geun Memorial Hall on Namsan Mountain, Seoul.
Lee won the public competition held by the city of Seoul to reconstruct the statue of Ahn Jung-geun. To create a sculpture that encapsulates the achievements of a historical figure is a task more daunting than simply summing up a person’s life in a single phrase. Until then, the widely circulated image of Ahn had been based on prison photographs taken under torture—swollen, distorted, and gaunt. Lee believed it was necessary to correct this image and instead present Ahn with a resolute expression that clearly embodied his will to resist for Korea’s independence. It was also important to express Ahn Jung-geun’s patriotic spirit as a “Great Korean” (Daehan Gukin), and to portray his identity as a general of the Korean Empire who sternly denounced Japan’s violent acts of imperialist aggression. The essential question became: how to depict the true figure of Ahn Jung-geun, who willingly sacrificed his life to defend his homeland from foreign invasion?
Lee Yong Deok’s statue of Ahn Jung-geun on Namsan Mountain embodies the aesthetic of Jeongjungdong (靜中動)—“stillness within movement.” Rather than opting for an overly dramatic or dynamic gesture, Lee sought to capture a quiet yet powerful motion that would express the figure’s deep inner resolve. It is a sculptural moment that encapsulates the spiritual determination of Ahn Jung-geun, the thinker behind The Theory of Peace in the East, who advocated nonviolence even as he carried out a fateful act under the justification of eliminating evil. The sculptor chose the moment when Ahn, pulling out the Taegeukgi (Korean national flag) he had held close to his heart, unfolds it in a single resolute gesture. As a result, the moment following the gunshot—charged with tension—is frozen in a pose that feels both deliberate and graceful, as if captured in slow motion. It becomes a solemn choreography, expressing Ahn’s longing for national liberation and peace, even if it meant wielding a weapon.
Lee Yong Deok has long pursued the idea of capturing fleeting moments as a way to express permanence and the accumulated layers of time. His sculptural approach, which reveals deep meaning even within a single scene of everyday life, becomes even more multidimensional when portraying specific individuals. In sculptures of historical figures, it is not merely the moment that is captured, but the entirety of a life’s achievement and spiritual legacy that must be synthesized into a single form. Lee strives to embody the beauty of an individual moment while also encompassing the broader historical and philosophical context—an effort to reproduce the essence of the person. This attitude elevates his work beyond mere representational form, transforming it into art imbued with profound philosophical reflection.
In 2023, Lee installed the great convergence, a monumental 8.2-meter-tall sculpture in front of ROKAUS Plaza at Yongsan Station in Seoul. Falling within his “Silhouette Sculpture” series, the work was constructed by stacking slender metal rods from four directions, like building with matchsticks. These four vertical planes converge into a silhouette that transitions from a standing posture to a military salute—an homage to the patriotism and spirit of Korea’s armed forces. As light and the viewer’s gaze shift, the sculpture reveals dimensional movement. It is seen as a new experiment that combines Lee’s signature Inverted Sculpture with his Silhouette Sculpture techniques. The work declares the artist’s ongoing pursuit of form and concept, embodying his current vision—rooted in clarity of purpose and driven by continuous experimentation.
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About the Contributor :
Cho Sang-In earned her B.A. in Archaeology and Art History and M.A. in Arts Management from Seoul National University. She is an art journalist at The Seoul Economic Daily and serves as Director of the Baeksang Institute for Art Policy. She is also a member of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee under the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea. Her recent book, The Surviving Paintings, explores the untold stories and enduring legacy of modern Korean art.
[1] Byung Kwan Jung, “On the Inaugural Exhibition of ‘Hyun-Sang,’” in Catalogue of the Hyun-Sang Exhibition, planned by Kwanhoon Gallery, 1986.
[2] Kwang Su Oh, “Honesty Toward Reality and the Coldness of Consciousness,” in Catalogue of the 1987 Hyun-Sang Exhibition, planned by Grolitsch Gallery, 1987.
[3] Bok Young Kim, “Situation, Phenomenon, and Again Toward Figurative Narrative,” in Catalogue of the 1988 Hyun-Sang Exhibition, planned by Gallery Hyundai, 1988.