Lee Ufan’s solo exhibition Lee Ufan in the Rijksmuseum Gardens is currently on view at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Marking his first solo presentation in the Netherlands, the exhibition showcases nine works of the Relatum series, which he has been working on since 1968. Of the nine, seven are installed in the museum’s garden, while the other two are exhibited inside. 
The title of the series “Relatum” refers not to a “relationship” but the relating and related ends of such, reflecting Lee’s interest and intention to focus on the individual elements which comprise an artwork along with the endless fluidity of the context between. The audience participates directly in the work as a “relatum” along with the key elements of the works such as the stones representing nature or the steel plates representing industrial society.
Through this exhibition Lee places an emphasis on a few pieces of the series, reinterpreting and placing them in the garden outdoors. The pieces harmonize with his original works and arrange themselves in the natural scenery surrounding the museum. Embodying one of Lee’s key concepts, ‘the Art of Encounter,’ the garden of Relatum invites the audience to a space of contemplation. The exhibition continues through October 27. 

American contemporary artist Roni Horn’s solo exhibition The Detour of Identity is currently on view at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark. Marking her first major solo presentation in the Nordics, the exhibition embodies her new approaches to photography, drawing and sculpture through the prism of cinema. The exhibition shows Horn’s intense occupation with body, desire and sexuality that are not often captured by words, literature or language, and her fascination with the methodologies of cinema that reveal human psychology and desire, submerged deep within the human psyche. More than any other medium, cinematic art reveals the mechanisms of psychic life through techniques such as dramatic contrast of light and dark, repetition of identical and near-identical images, camera angles, cutting and splicing, flashbacks and distortions.

In the exhibition, Horn’s works are juxtaposed with excerpts from iconic films by master directors including Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Vertigo, Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, Claude Chabrol’s The Does or Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia, which all delicately explore the unease and ambiguity of identity that cannot be fully expressed through language. Horn captures the tension between the external world, in which the self exists within societal boundaries, and the internal world dominated by impulse and desire.
Pursuing fundamental questions such as “Who am I? What does my gender mean? What language is available for emotions?”, the works of the exhibition essentially revolve around societal identity and the experimentation, loss, confusion of identity itself. Thus, by emphasizing the fluidity of identity that cannot be captured or defined by a certain shape or form, Horn expands her previous work through the medium of cinematic art. 

Daylight—natural light—is a key part of this exhibition, creating an interplay between the indoor light and outdoor weather. Movements of light under transforming weather provide an opportunity to tangibly experience the conceptual aspects of Horn’s work—humans and the natural landscape, permanence and variability, the ambiguity and transparence of light, water, or weather. The exhibition runs through September 1.

Swiss contemporary artist Ugo Rondinone’s retrospective Cry Me a River is being held at the Kunstmuseum Luzern in Lucerne, Switzerland. The “river” in the title of the exhibition refers to the River Reuss, which flows into Lake Lucerne in front of the museum. The exhibited works resonate not only with the gallery space, but also with the natural surroundings of the museum. 

Through this exhibition, Rondinone contemplates upon the significance of his place of origin in relation to his artistic practice, connecting with the artistic lineage of the Swiss inland region known as “Innerschweizer Innerlichkeit,” which emerged in the early 1970s in central Switzerland. Marking Rondinone’s return from New York to his home country, Cry Me a River brings together extensive and multifaceted works spanning over the past 30 years.

Among the presented works, stone figures, inspired by helpful signposts in the mountains, comprises four large-scale sculptures that surpass human size, dominating the exhibition space and overwhelming the visitors. primal, consisting of 59 small-scale bronze sculptures in the shape of horses, evokes prehistoric artifacts unearthed by archaeologists. Such play with dimension is a recurring element in Rondinone's work. Additionally, two paintings depicting the day and night landscapes of Lake Lucerne are also on display, capturing the beauty of his homeland.

Cry Me a River encompasses Rondinone's reinterpretation of familiar and intuitive motifs through traditional materials and methods, bridging the gap between viewers and his artworks. This retrospective continues through October 20.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) presents a key work from the Nucleus series by Lee Seung Jio as a part of Hyundai Card First Look. Celebrating the partnership between MoMA and Hyundai Card, this new programming aims to highlight modern and contemporary Korean art and to discover and foster promising artists and curators. The series presents recent acquisitions from MoMA’s vast collection of painting, design, film, photography and sculpture in dedicated public spaces on the Museum’s second and third floors. Among the first artists featured are Lee Seung Jio, a pioneering figure in Korean geometric abstraction, and Martine Gutierrez, an American performance artist.

On view on the Museum's third floor is Nucleus F-G-999 (1970), a representative work from Lee’s Nucleus series. With its prominent pipe-like cylinders as a motif, the work symbolizes modern civilization and the rapid advancement of technology. Lee meticulously applied color using a flat brush and masking tape, then sanded down each layer to create a pulsating field of light. Such a process allowed the artist to add the illusion of metallic surfaces to the painting, further exploring the ideas of flatness and three-dimensionality, the abstract and the figurative. The exhibition runs through fall 2024.

First-generation South Korean woman sculptor Kim Yun Shin’s solo exhibition Kim Yunshin—Letters from Argentina is currently on view at Lee Ungno Museum in Daejeon, Korea. This exhibition commemorates the 60th anniversary of Kim and Lee’s first encounter in Paris and highlights Kim’s creative passion and artistic practice cultivated across the globe over decades. The exhibition showcases approximately fifty works including sculptures, paintings and archive materials all stemming from Kim’s unique visual language deeply rooted in naturalist philosophy, of which thirty of them are publicly revealed for the first time in Korea. 

The interaction between Kim Yun Shin and Lee Ungno came to an end when Lee was implicated in the East Berlin Incident of 1967. However, their practices share similarities in treating painting and sculpture as complementary genres rather than as two different parts of a dichotomy, which allowed them to flexibly expand their artistic worlds through experimental attitudes. In particular, Kim has been experimenting not only with crossing the boundaries between painting and sculpture but also with interpreting and experimenting with dichotomous values such as life and the absolute, ephemerality and eternity, in new dimensions.

Chronologically illuminating Kim’s representative works through the lens of "natural abstract," the exhibition presents the Yeokdong (Dynamism) series from the late 1970s, where she first experimented with the boundaries between plasticity and flatness after moving to France; and the Song of My Soul series from 1984, produced after settling in Argentina, with an emphasis on the plasticity and color based on Latin American cultural influences. Following the 2010s, Kim has attempted to blur the boundaries between sculpture and painting, unifying the two mediums through the Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One series. One of the pieces on display, covered in geometric patterns and vibrant colors, embodies the interaction between the two diverging mediums. 

Kim Yunshin—Letters from Argentina offers an opportunity to encounter a comprehensive review of Kim’s artistic practice alongside an archived records that capture Kim’s interactions with Lee Ungno. The exhibition continues through September 22.

American contemporary artist Jenny Holzer’s major solo exhibition Jenny Holzer: Light Line is currently on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, USA. Simultaneously encompassing 40 years of her practice and realizing a perspective of continuation, the exhibition is her first institutional solo exhibition in 15 years since showing at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York in 2009. Holzer’s career-spanning works which cover various mediums harmonize exceptionally with Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic architecture, providing an immersive and holistic experience to the visitors. 

The exhibition marks Holzer’s grand return to Guggenheim since 1989. In particular, this exhibition features a new manifestation of her signature text work Untitled (Selections from Truisms, Inflammatory Essays, The Living Series, The Survival Series, Under a Rock, Laments, and Child Text (1989), climbing up all six ramps of the building towards the oculus in the museum’s rotunda. 35 years after the work’s first presentation, it has been restored and updated through the latest digital technologies.

Jenny Holzer: Light Line also provides a comprehensive selection of Holzer’s works from the 1970s to the present day, including paintings, works on paper, plaques, and stone pieces. Moving beyond an archival purpose, the exhibition underscores the enduring power of language that transcends time. 

Globally acclaimed contemporary artist Roni Horn’s solo exhibition Give Me Paradox or Give Me Death is currently on view at Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany. The title is a play on the famous quote by the 18th century American revolutionary Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” where the term “liberty” is substituted with “paradox.” By equating the two values, she underscores the liberating potential of paradox, exploring ambiguity and variability in nature in this context.
 
One of the works on view, a.k.a (2008-2009) realizes the human being as organisms in a constant state of transformation, which Horn further describes as “the multitude in each of us.” The thirty self-portraits filmed throughout the course of her life, displayed in fifteen random pairs, provide a representation of her nonconforming identity long before terms such as “gender,” “genderqueer” or “non-binary” entered public discourse. Horn suggests through these fluctuating portraits that as appearance changes, everything else may change; similarly, that external qualities may reflect very little of their internal counterparts.

Also noteworthy is Untitled (Chambers St.) (1971-1989), a drawing series shown for the first time in Give Me Paradox or Give Me Death. Drawing is central to Horn’s practice; she has compared drawing to breathing, signaling the importance they hold within her oeuvre. Using thin, jittery lines, Horn created abstract, at times organic-looking forms by means of grid structures. Without any clear orientation, their motifs prompt numerous associations with nature, maps, or other micro or macro formations, while ultimately inviting viewers to the world of abstraction. The exhibition runs through August 11, 2024.