Il Lee’s Large Ballpoint Pen Drawings Harness a Powerful Quiet
June 07, 2010D Magazine
Calm and frenzy lay down together in the remarkable little show of big work New Vision: Ballpoint Drawings by Il Lee at the Crow Collection through… Read More 
Contrapuntal Infinitudes: Il Lee at Art Projects International
June 01, 2010artcritical
For some 30 years Il Lee has exclusively used, and abused, ballpoint pens, surely by now many tens of thousands of them, to make extraordinary… Read More
IL LEE: Small Works 2001-2010 at Art Projects Internatnional
March 30, 2010The Drawing Center News, The Bottom Line
Currently on display is a brilliant selection of ballpoint pen drawings by artist Il Lee (b. 1952, Korea) created from 2001-2010. Lee has been… Read More
IL LEE Ballpoint Drawings at the Queens Museum of Art
September 07, 2007The New York Times
A selection of drawings — striking indigo and black ink abstractions, all done exclusively in ballpoint pen, on paper and canvas — makes up this… Read More
A Few Good Pens - IL LEE
September 01, 2007ARTnews
For a quarter century, the South Korean-born artist has been coaxing massive webs of line from disposable ballpoint pens.... For his solo show… Read More
To See the World in Ballpoint Pen - IL LEE
August 10, 2007The New York Times
What makes this work, and others like it, so alluring is its unexpected suggestiveness. When Mr. Lee's drawings conjure before you a soft, densely… Read More
IL Lee - Queens Museum of Art
August 07, 2007The New Yorker
Hundreds of thousands of disposable ballpoint pens have passed through the Korean-born, Brooklyn-based artist’s hands over the years, and he’s… Read More
Il Lee: Ballpoint Drawings - Queens Museum of Art
July 26, 2007Time Out New York
For the past several decades, the Korean-born artist has been fusing minimalist aesthetics and traditional Asian painting techniques into a series of… Read More
IL LEE: Ballpoint Drawings at Queens Museum of Art
July 19, 2007artnet
Large-format blue and black ink drawings, including a 50-foot installation by the Korean-born, Brooklyn-based artist Read More
IL LEE: Ballpoint Abstractions at San Jose Museum of Art
July 07, 2007San Francisco Chronicle
I wish I had seen sooner the stirring show of abstractions by Korean-born New York artist Il Lee at the San Jose Museum of Art. It ends Sunday. More… Read More
Whirls Enough And Time, IL LEE does wonders with a humble ballpoint pen
April 12, 2007metroactive.com
Artist IL Lee doesn't need sable-hair brushes and hand-ground pigments. The Korean-born artist, who has lived and worked in New York since 1977,… Read More
Beauty in Ballpoint: Distinctive Doodles by Il Lee
April 01, 2007San Jose Mercury News
Lee has played with lines like a composer noodling away on a piano. After more than 20 years of such playing, he has expanded to complex symphonies… Read More
IL LEE: Ballpoint Abstractions (text from catalogue)
February 27, 2007IL LEE: Ballpoint Abstractions
The expressive inky line remains, but Lee’s use of ballpoint pen gives his art a freshness and originality that satisfies the avant-garde craving for… Read More
IL Lee, Chun Kwang-Young and Lee Ufan: International Abstraction, Generational Trajectories
December 01, 2006Art AsiaPacific
Using the dark black and indigo inks of ballpoint pens, Il Lee builds up monumental form through repeated working over a particular space, with the… Read More
IL Lee at Art Projects International
October 01, 2006Art in America
There is an almost palpable liquidity in the dense, indigo heart of Il Lee’s recent production. Using common ballpoint pens, he locates a point or… Read More
Just what is it that makes Il Lee’s art so different, so appealing?
April 01, 2006Art in Culture
Lee's work can be approached from many directions. The inventiveness of the work suggests the avant-gardes of modernism while its refinement brings… Read More
IL LEE: Beyond the Minimal
April 01, 2006Art In Culture
Il Lee’s work also radiates a certain spirituality filtered through minimalist non-objectivity. In the pulse of its forms, it’s, chi perhaps, it… Read More
IL Lee at Art Projects International
October 22, 2004Art AsiaPacific
A product of both Western and Asian cultures, Il Lee's remarkable series of ballpoint pen drawings quote both the theoretical and physical… Read More
Marking: Drawings by Contemporary Artists from Korea
March 01, 2004Art AsiaPacific
The exhibition Marking: Drawings by Contemporary Artists from Korea is reviewed in Art AsiaPacific. Read More
All about the Delicacy and Energy of the Line - IL Lee
November 23, 2003The New York Times
For pure linear intensity, IL Lee's drawings cannot be bettered. They demonstrate how pen and ink can be used to build complex forms that seem held… Read More
IL Lee - Line and Form: Drawings 1984-1996
April 01, 1997Space, Seoul
At first glance–in looking at the exhibition of Il Lee's drawings at Art Projects International (API) in New York City–Il Lee's drawings are… Read More
IL Lee at Art Projects International
February 01, 1997Review
Captivated by the announcement card, I went down for a preview. Though the drawings are mostly recent, one initiating work from 1984 is included--a… Read More
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