This permanent exhibition utilizes watershed moments in Korea’s modern and contemporary history as well as East Asian art history to examine the periodic narratives created by Lee through his art. Having lived through the colonial period, liberation, the Korean War, and the early years of modernization, Lee never stopped using art as his language to record and pose questions about the present. 

  Beginning with the classical traditions of calligraphy and painting in which he was trained, Lee went on to work fluidly across figurative and abstract approaches, as well as across media such as painting, sculpture, and ceramics, gradually developing a universal artistic language. The exhibition comprises three sections: the period from the 1910s until liberation in 1945, from 1945 to his immigration to France, and the years he spent in France. It spans his entire oeuvre, from bamboo paintings that embody a desire for his home country’s independence to the People series on the Korean Peninsula’s division and reunification, offering a multi-faceted exploration of how Lee’s time was forged and evolved. 

  Against this artistic backdrop, Lee’s artistic world evolved toward a sustained reflection of the relationship between art and society within the context of global contemporary art, eventually becoming sophisticated enough to operate across Eastern and Western artistic formats. Lee Ungno’s art is not merely experimental for experiment’s sake. Rather, it poses enduring questions about peace and human communities that transcend ethnicity, ideology, and national borders, suggesting the practical possibilities of contemporary art in relation to society.