The 87th ARTCaffè hosted Lee Bae. We had a full house in the living room, with an audience tuning in online from the US, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Thailand, Vietnam, Nepal, China, and South Korea.

We had the privilege to be guided by Lee Bae as he reviewed the story of the project of "La Maison de la lune Brûlée", an official collateral event of the 60^th Venice Biennale. The artist shared insights and the backstage of the exhibition, on view at Wilmotte Foundation until November 24^th.

‍ARTCaffè: thanks a lot, Lee, for accepting this invitation and for being with us in the living room today to review step by step the project behind "La Maison de la lune Brûlée". Let's start from the very beginning. How did it come about?‍

Lee Bae: this official collateral event of the 60^th Venice Biennale has been organized by the Wilmotte Foundation in Venice. I have a long-standing relationship with the architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte. When I went to Paris in 1990, he was my first patron, buying my paintings and providing significant support. In 2014, he served as the commissioner for my solo exhibition at the prestigious Carine Blanchard Foundation in France. Because of this deep connection, in 2023, even before we were selected, Mr. Wilmotte proposed that we prepare for the Venice Biennale together with his foundation. We had many discussions and started preparations, which led to today's collaborative exhibition. When I received this proposal, it deeply resonated with me as a Korean artist, allowing me to reflect on my cultural identity.

The question of how to propose an exhibition at Venice, the largest art festival in the world, was the most significant starting point for me and deeply resonated with me.ARTCaffè: What is the concept behind this exhibition and how does it resonate with your art practice?‍

Lee Bae: I have been working with charcoal as my main material for about 33 years. Many people refer to me as 'the artist of charcoal.' The concept of this exhibition is to convey why I use charcoal, what charcoal means to me, and what I want to express through it. However, it seems challenging to encapsulate and present all of this concisely.

I wanted to create an exhibition that makes people feel who I am as an artist, rather than just seeing the works. It's like when we visit a church or a sacred place: we don't go just to see something, but to feel something and be moved by it. With that feeling in mind, I started this exhibition.

ARTCaffè: Can you please tell us what "Daljip Taeugi" is?

Lee Bae: Burning the Daljip is a type of folk ritual and festival conducted in traditional Korean agricultural societies every year on the Lunar New Year's first full moon. Each village in the region participates in this event.

So, every year on the Lunar New Year's first full moon, a Daljip is made, primarily from pine branches. In Korea, especially in my hometown or anywhere else, the most common tree in the mountains is the pine tree. The young men of the village gather these pine branches and bring them to the village's open space.

Using these branches, they create a structure resembling an Eskimo igloo, but in a very tall conical shape. In my hometown, it is built very high, reaching about 20 meters.

Once the Daljip is built, it is set on fire at the time the moon rises. The person who lights the fire is sometimes the eldest member of the village, but most often it is the young man who is the first to get married in the new year.

After the Daljip is built, the villagers write their wishes for the year on Hanji (traditional Korean paper). For families with grown-up children, they wish for their children's marriage; for those expecting a child, they wish for a safe delivery; for the sick, they wish for healing, and they also wish to burn away all bad relationships and evil spirits from the previous year. This festival embodies the villagers' hopes and aims to eliminate all negative energy from the past.

When the moon rises and the Daljip starts burning, the villagers play music and dance around the Daljip, holding hands. This event also serves as a time for reconciliation among the villagers, turning into a grand festival that lasts throughout the night.

After the Daljip has burned, early the next morning, villagers come out with baskets to collect the charcoal left from the burning. They take this charcoal to use in their homes. This charcoal is used for various purposes, such as fermenting soy sauce and hanging it at the main gate when a child is born. Villagers consider this charcoal to be exceptionally pure and use it meaningfully throughout the year.

Witnessing this Daljip burning performance and its significance led me to participate in the Venice Biennale. Charcoal is directly connected to my culture and me. It was the only ceremony and significant cultural event I experienced in my childhood, making it deeply meaningful.

ARTCaffè: To make your special ceremony, you collected messages from all over the world. Did you have the chance to read them all? Is there any of those messages that you remember and which left a mark on you?

Lee Bae: The first event in preparing the Daljip burning was gathering messages. These messages were collected from people around the world via the internet through our website, where individuals could leave their wishes. Most participants were from the cultural and artistic community. The messages they left were transcribed onto Hanji paper by me and elderly people from my hometown. These messages were then attached to the Daljip I created. We received over 1,000 messages, with many participants from the arts and culture sector. However, instead of focusing on art, most of the messages reflected contemporary issues such as stopping wars, concerns about climate change and environmental problems. The most common wishes were for the cessation of wars and, above all, the health of their families.

Among the messages, many were about personal health and environmental issues. Given the unpredictability of the future, there were numerous wishes related to health. As I read these messages, I realized that this is a universal human wish. Health is something beyond human control. Thus, I came to think that these wishes for health might be the most fundamental human desires.

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ARTCaffè: Can you please share the experience of the Daljip Teugi in your hometown, Cheongdo? What was the response of the local community? Were they aware that this ceremony was a special one?

Lee Bae: Starting the Daljip burning had a profound personal impact on me as an artist. As I embarked on exhibiting at the Venice Biennale, an international art event, it all began in my rural hometown of Cheongdo. In Cheongdo, we had no electricity until I was nine years old. Living without electricity is almost akin to living without modern civilization. We couldn't listen to music, and there were no modern conveniences like refrigerators. The idea of starting at the Venice Biennale from this rural background filled me with deep emotion, especially beginning with the Daljip burning, a traditional Korean ritual. It was a way to convey my message at the heart of contemporary art. Therefore, I created this Daljip especially for myself. At the same time as my Daljip burning, there was a separate grand Daljip burning event organized by the villagers in Cheongdo.

The Daljip burning I conducted was designed and created by me. Around 100 people from the art community attended this event, which was a performance for the Venice Biennale. It was not an event involving the villagers of Cheongdo. However, I place great significance on the fact that this rural town of Cheongdo was the starting point for my journey to the Venice Biennale.

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ARTCaffè: Let’s now move to Italy. In April, you realized and installed the exhibition at the Wilmotte Foundation in Cannaregio. Can you tell us how you designed the show? Since it is site-specific, how did the space influence your choices or guide them?

Venice is a unique region even within Italy, a city built on the sea with wooden piles driven into the seabed. The Wilmotte Foundation features a long, dark corridor about 20 meters long, leading to a large exhibition space measuring approximately 20 meters in width and 15 meters in length, with a height of about 7 meters. At the back, there is a small garden leading to a canal.

I thought a lot about how to incorporate Korean sensibilities into this Venetian space. I planned a video installation in the long corridor, about 20 meters long and 2 meters wide. The video includes footage of the Daljip burning and my brushstroke work, which is a form of physical performance. While the result appears as simple brushstrokes on a canvas, it is actually an act of moving the body and recording physical traces.

I installed the video of the brush movement performance and the Daljip burning in the long corridor. Entering from the fire-themed beginning, the exhibition space is grounded in the earth. Inside the exhibition hall, there is a large sculpture made of black granite representing traditional ink. The floor and walls are decorated in the traditional Korean style; the floor is covered with Hanji paper, and the walls are finished with paper provided by the Italian company Fabriano.

I aimed to create a neutral space reflecting the intimate Korean room culture. In this space, I installed my artworks and painted directly on-site, allowing visitors to walk through the art as if they were strolling inside a painting. After viewing the exhibition, visitors can exit to the small garden that leads to the canal. In the garden, I created a long passageway covered with yellow glass, mimicking a moonlit path, allowing people to view the Venetian canal as if walking under moonlight. This journey begins with fire, transitions through earth, and leads to water, reflecting the traditional Korean neutral structure.

By incorporating the moonlight, I aimed to draw the Venetian landscape into the exhibition space. My work, which begins with fire and transitions to water, embodies a concept of circulation. I have thought a lot about the cycles of nature and art, and the relationship between people and nature. This contemplation led me to structure the exhibition into three main parts. Starting with material-based works such as sculpture and painting, I moved towards the immaterial world of moonlight, which has no physical form. This exploration of relationships between the material and the immaterial is a key concept in my exhibition.

ARTCaffè: Let’s have a quick virtual walk through the exhibition, with you as a special guide.

Lee Bae: In the first entrance corridor, I installed a screen that is 19 meters long and 2 meters high. It showcases my brushstroke performance, which is not about painting but about the act of painting. The video work combines the fire from the Daljip burning and my performance.

In the exhibition space, the first large wall has six pieces titled "From Fire," made of charcoal, hung from the ceiling to the floor, creating a long panel wall. Turning around this wall, you can see a sculpture titled "Meok" at the end. This sculpture has three sides made of black granite, with one side featuring a brushstroke carving that creates a sense of flow. This particular work was created over the course of about a year in Carrara, Italy. The floor and walls were painted by me on-site using a kind of paint made from charcoal powder. And the yellow space you see in the back is the Moonlight Passage, which leads to the canal.

ARTCaffè: The exhibition, of course, is a whole, but do you have any favorite spot or part of it?

Lee Bae: I tried to highlight the unique characteristics of each space. It was my first time working with video and using light in installations like the Moonlight Passage. However, as I mentioned earlier, the goal was not for people to come and look at specific pieces but to experience a feeling in the space. I wanted people to sit on the floor, walk around, and engage with the space itself, feeling the presence of art within it.

It is difficult to choose a favorite space because I loved them all. Each space was unique and special to me.

ARTCaffè: The process you just described, from the concept to the realization of the exhibition, has been long and complex. Can you please pick and share one moment that is very meaningful to you?

Lee Bae: It is very difficult to single out one particular moment. Every aspect of the exhibition was incredibly meaningful to me. The most memorable experience while preparing for the exhibition was creating the sculpture titled "Meok."

Ink was invented 4,000 years ago in the East as the most important material for drawing and writing. With the invention of ink, individuals could express their thoughts, convey emotions, and record history. It could be likened to the discovery of the computer today. I believe that ink is the most crucial medium in Eastern cultures.

When Marco Polo traveled to Venice, he brought noodles, gunpowder, and paper, but he did not bring ink. This inspired me to create a large monumental sculpture of ink.

Venice is a city built on water, and the "Meok" sculpture measured 1.5m x 1.5m with a height of 4.6m, weighing 23 tons. However, Venice has strict regulations on the weight of installed sculptures, with a permit condition of less than 3 tons. We had to reduce the weight by 20 tons. After numerous consultations with architects and the art director, Jaeho Jung, and many trips to Carrara, we decided to hollow out the sculpture.

We hollowed out 20 tons from the inside. During this process, I was afraid it might break while moving it, and there were many challenges. It was an incredibly intense time, where prayers came naturally due to the desperation of the situation. Placing that sculpture in the neutral space of Korean design, which I describe as a neutral Korean backdrop, remains the most memorable experience for me.

ARTCaffè: You have had many international exhibitions during your successful career so far. What has been special about “La Maison de la lune Brûlée”?

Lee Bae: Previously, I organized exhibitions with the help of the gallery director and a few assistants. For this grand event, I had around 100 people working on my exhibition. With so many people involved, it feels a bit embarrassing to say that I exhibited as if I were working alone in my studio.

Several expert wallpaper technicians came multiple times from Korea. They worked from morning until evening for about 15 to 20 days. Wallpapering is a very intricate technique. Additionally, there were people filming the videos, and the music for the videos was composed by Professor Tod Machover, a world-renowned composer of contemporary music from the MIT Media Lab. One of the most memorable experiences with Professor Machover was when I asked him to compose the music for the video. He requested to see it, but I explained that I didn't want background music for my video; instead, I wanted his music to meet my video. So, he composed the music without watching the video. When he asked how long the video was, I told him it was 7 minutes, and he composed a piece that was 7 minutes and 4 seconds long. I then adjusted my video to fit the 7 minutes and 4 seconds of music, and magic happened. This is one of the most memorable experiences for me.