Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei

Born in 1930 in Tokyo, Kazuo YUHARA graduated from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he studied sculpture. In 1962, he won the grand-prix with scholarship of studying abroad at the Competition of Maruzen Oil Foundation, Tokyo, and left for Paris the next year, where he worked until returning to Japan in 1980. His sculptures during his earlier days as an art student were figurative. After his return, his works transformed into cold minimalist abstract style, presenting the nature and texture of the materials and manifesting metaphysical meaning.


YUHARA’s works have travelled throughout Japan and around the world, for example, the 5th Guggenheim International Exhibition of Sculpture, the 10th Sao Paolo Biennale and the Expo Museum of the Arts, Osaka, Triennale-India, and Art Fair Tokyo. A lot of his works are in the collections of private collectors in Europe and the United States. He now resides and works in Japan and his more recent sculptures showcase an emphasis on the relationship between the works and surrounding spaces, as well as the possibilities of interactive relationship between the works and audiences.

Born in Xianyou, Fujian Province, China, in 1928, Lee entered the Department of Fine Arts at Taiwan Provincial Normal College (now National Taiwan Normal University) in 1948, where he was first introduced to sculptural art. Finding inspirations in traditional Chinese philosophy, LEE adopts the minimal style of Western modernism as his expressive method, and has become known for creating steel sculptures; through spatial constructs, he represents the aesthetic thinking on purity and nature of Oriental philosophy.


Lee founded with important contemporary sculptors the “Zodiac Sculpture Group.” In 1983, LEE utilized steel plates to create the “Endless Minimalism,” which was a red abstract triangular plane, and participated in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum Opening Exhibition. Because its shape and color provoked associations of the Red Chinese regime of P.R.O.C., the original work was painted white without LEE being notified in advance. The incident triggered public uproar. In recent years, LEE has continued creating sculptures relentlessly. His works have been collected by major art museums both in Taiwan and abroad. LEE also published “Greek Sculpture,” “On Sculpture—Iron Scraps and Dust: Compilation of Zai-Qian LEE’s Essays at the Age of 88,” and “Minimal, Infinite. Improvisation 89: The Sculpture of Zai-Qian LEE.”