Yongwoo Lee is an art historian and curator based in Shanghai and Seoul. He is artistic director of the Shanghai International Art City Research Institute, and professor at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts of Shanghai University. He was previously the director of the Shanghai Himalayas Museum, and the founder and co-curator of Shanghai Project with Hans Ulrich Obrist. He was the first president of the International Biennial Association from 2013 to 2017.
Education
Lee studied literature and art history at Yonsei University as well as Hongik University in Seoul. He has a Ph.D. in art history from Oxford University, where his doctoral dissertation The Origins of Video Art critically examined encounters between art and technology.
Lee was the founding director of the Gwangju Biennale in 1995, the first international biennial in East Asia, which took "Beyond the Borders" as its inaugural theme. The first Gwangju Biennale was visited by 1.63 million spectators, which remains the largest audience in the history of biennials. He was once again invited to curate the 2004 Gwangju Biennale for its 10 years anniversary and also served as president of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation from 2008 to 2014. During his tenure, the Gwangju Biennale invited various curators such as Okwui Enwezor, Masimiliano Gioni, Ai Weiwei, Seung Hyosang, Jessica Morgan, Sunjung Kim, Carol Yinghua Lu, Mami Kataoka, Nancy Adajania, Alia Swastika, Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Nikolaus Hirsch to serve as artistic directors of the Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju Design Biennale as well as Gwangju Folly.
Shanghai Project
Lee founded the Shanghai Project in 2015 when he was the executive director of Shanghai Himalayas Museum, and co-curated its 2016 and 2017 editions with Hans Ulrich Obrist. The Shanghai Project aimed to create a multidisciplinary ideas platform bringing together practitioners from a variety of disciplines, including art, architecture, design, film, performance, and sound, as well as the humanities, social and natural sciences. The project explored the future of human beings in 100 years with the theme 2116 focusing on climate change, human extinction, virtual reality and slow-aging.
SIAC (Shanghai International Art City) Research Institute
Lee is the artistic director of the Shanghai International Art City Research Institute, which was established in 2017 by Baowu Steel and Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai University. The art city is a long-term project that transforms the decommissioned industrial heritage of the Baowu Steel compound into an art city. The planned art facilities include museums, arts streets, studios, galleries, art and architecture colleges, residential spaces, theaters, and other cultural facilities. The Shanghai International Art City Research Institute is located within Shanghai University, and has the function of a research program as well as the mission to intervene in various spaces attached to art cities. The Advisory Board Members of SIAC and guest professors of SAFA include Frances Morris, Jean de Loisy, Italo Rota, Eva Franch i Gilabert, Andrew Brewerton, and Daniel Moquay.
Exhibitions
Lee has curated biennales as well as solo and thematic group shows. He curated two editions of Gwangju Biennale in 1995 and 2004. Solo and group exhibitions he curated include Information and Reality, Whitney Biennial in Seoul, Nam June Paik Retrospective, The Flower of May, Dansaekhwa, Tiger’s Tail, International Film and Video Since the1980s, TheChallenging Souls at the Power Station of Art, Shanghai, among others.
Publications
His published books include: Dansaekhwa, Information and Reality, Nam June Paik,The Origins of Video Art, Art and Life of Nam June Paik.
