Internationally renowned artist Lee Ufan shows up in small ways around the Palais des Papes in his latest exhibition, Relatum. It is through hundreds of pieces of stone, minimalist paintings, and a large metal bowl, alongside other installations, that he blends himself in with the space. Relatum is on display for another month, running from July 3 to November 15, 2026.
Ufan's exhibition, called an international event by the Palais des Papes on their website, is part of the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and Korea, which the City of Avignon is participating in.
Relatum speaks to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. Ufan shows, in building his work into the space, how different cultures and perspectives coexist simultaneously and create something beautiful together.
The exhibition is across the Palais des Papes, the former seat of the papacy. His largest and most complex work in Relatum, Primitive Room, stretches 130 by 120 cm long in the Grande Chapelle. Each piece of slate was painstakingly chosen and lets erosion and time mould them, and while pulling our focus in to look at this new stone floor, it also pulls the attention out to the surrounding walls of the room, as some shards of slate sit vertically against the wall, leading visitors to admire the architecture surrounding them.
On the title card, the exhibition is described as filling space between the lofty arches of the Palais des Papes with silence and with poetry. This is especially obvious in Ufan's The Stone, which is, quite literally, a single stone plopped in the center of the Chapelle Saint-Martial, a room that is absolutely covered with intricate and colourfully painted walls.
Some other installations of note are Response and Relation, both responding to the space and the artist's presence in it. Relation uses a reflective base that looks like a large metal bowl in the Cuisine Haute, or kitchen, in an attempt to mirror what's at the bottom of this room to the top.
Relation is the only painting installation in the exhibition, where Ufan's painstrokes are made with a rhythmic motion as he attempts to pare down his personal expression in the pieces and lets them exist separately from him.
Relatum is all about how we exist in spaces, and Ufan's relationship between personal expression, art, and space. In this space, his minimalist style finds him present but attempting not to overcrowd his surroundings.