brilliant 30: Kwangho Lee

Artist Kwangho Lee traverses the boundaries of practical furniture design by associating new utility with every day, ordinary materials. Lee’s work is about optimizing an object’s properties by modifying the original usage of common materials such as Styrofoam, electric wires and PVC pipes. This is how the artist distinguishes his work from traditional art and crafts and conventional furniture design. Lee does not impart distinctive purposes to his materials lest it limit the scope of his work; rather, by redefining an object’s function, Lee invites the public to discover new possibilities through his avant-garde art. His work retains the original utility of the object’s material; yet by combining multiple materials, Lee invests the final product with an entirely new function.

When one looks at a work of fine art or craft, it is common to measure and define the material properties of the final product. However, Kwangho Lee does not specify the user or the utility of his piece; rather, he leaves room for the transformation and modification of his work depending on the context of space and location. Only at this stage does the artist begin to intervene as a designer. The statement, “The balance between a material’s unique properties and its utility reconciles the ambiguous relationship between ordinary objects and furniture, yielding new aesthetics in the field of furniture design,” reflects the contingency of his work. Lee leaves room for interpreting his body of work both as a standard furniture line and as work of fine art. Ultimately, the object’s user has the freedom to impart new functions and possibilities to his work.