Lee Bae, between spirit and matter

The exhibition The In-Between by Lee Bae invites viewers on a physical and spiritual journey through matter, gesture, and memory. The Korean artist, born in Cheongdo in 1956 and active between Paris and Seoul, presents a new series of bronze sculptures titled Brushstrokes, inspired by the movement of a brush dipped in charcoal ink. Forms that were once light and immaterial here become solid bodies, metallic twists that inhabit space like suspended signs between painting and sculpture. Some works rest on the ground, others lean toward the walls, and one hangs from the ceiling: arabesques that seem to prolong the artist’s gesture beyond the limits of matter, in a continuous dialogue with the gallery’s light and void. The contrast between the density of metal and the lightness of movement becomes the poetic core of the exhibition, transforming the space into a magnetic field where the viewer’s body is drawn in and reflected in a slow, meditative oscillation. In another room, a video shot in Korea shows Lee Bae in a rice field performing ritual gestures in the earth and water, linking the work of the artist to that of the farmer. The sequence becomes a metaphor for his creative process: a return to origins, to the body, to mud, to the primal substance of art. In this elemental gesture lies the sacred dimension of creation not as representation but as birth. The In-Between thus evokes a threshold space between East and West, abstraction and matter, emptiness and fullness where art becomes a passage, a place of transformation and rebirth. In a time dominated by conflict and violent images, Lee Bae reaffirms the power of the “middle,” the fertile interval where humanity and nature can once again breathe together.