GINALS.- South Korean artist Lee Bae has transformed the Abbey of Beaulieu-en-Rouergue into a setting for quiet reflection with En attendant, an exhibition bringing 23 works into dialogue with the monument’s austere Cistercian architecture.

Organized by the Centre des monuments nationaux in partnership with Perrotin, the exhibition opened on June 25 and remains on view through September 30, 2026. It includes works on paper, paintings, sculptures and installations spanning more than two decades of Lee’s exploration of charcoal and carbon black.

Founded in the 12th century and located in the Seye Valley in southwestern France, the abbey provides a resonant setting for an artist whose work repeatedly returns to fire, transformation and the passage of time. Its restrained stone interiors, limited ornamentation and shifting natural light amplify the contrasts at the center of Lee’s practice: presence and absence, light and darkness, solidity and emptiness.

Born in Cheongdo, South Korea, in 1956, Lee lives and works between Paris and Seoul. For nearly 30 years, he has investigated the expressive and symbolic possibilities of charcoal, treating it not simply as an artistic material but as a substance linked to memory, renewal and the cycle of life.

Charcoal is produced by burning wood, yet it also preserves the potential to create new fire. That dual nature has made it central to Lee’s visual language. In earlier works, he assembled fragments of raw charcoal into dense, mosaic-like surfaces or used carbonized tree trunks to create sculptural arrangements. More recently, he has worked with carbon black, developing sweeping gestures first explored in ink on paper and then translated into layered, translucent acrylic surfaces.

At Beaulieu-en-Rouergue, these different approaches unfold throughout the abbey, allowing the exhibition to move between intimacy and monumentality. Delicate brushstrokes appear alongside heavier, material-driven works, while bronze sculptures extend the energy of Lee’s calligraphic marks into three-dimensional space.





The exhibition’s title, En attendant, or “While Waiting,” introduces a sense of suspended time. Within the former monastery, that idea takes on added weight. The abbey has served as a place of contemplation since the Middle Ages, and Lee’s works invite visitors to slow down, observe subtle changes in texture and light, and consider the tension between what is visible and what remains concealed.

The presentation also continues the abbey’s longstanding relationship with contemporary art. After being abandoned during the French Revolution, the site was rescued from ruin in the 1950s by collectors and patrons Geneviève Bonnefoi and Pierre Brache. Their collection, begun in 1948, includes works by artists such as Hans Hartung, Alfred Manessier, Georges Mathieu, Simon Hantaï, Jean Dubuffet and Henri Michaux.

Following an extensive restoration, the abbey reopened in 2022 with a permanent museum route presenting nearly 200 works from the collection. Since then, the Centre des monuments nationaux has invited internationally active artists to create exhibitions responding to the building, its history and its holdings.

Lee’s exhibition forms part of the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and Korea. Other events devoted to the artist include presentations in South Korea at Museum SAN in Wonju and at a site near Cheongdo, his hometown. A joint exhibition featuring Lee Bae and Jean-Michel Othoniel is also planned at the French residence in Seoul, while Perrotin will present a solo exhibition of Lee’s work in Paris during Art Basel Paris later this year.

Curated by French art critic and journalist Henri-François Debailleux, En attendant emphasizes the spiritual and physical qualities of Lee’s materials without separating them from the architecture around them. The abbey is not merely a backdrop; its stone surfaces, vaulted spaces and centuries of history become active elements in the exhibition.

The result is a restrained but immersive encounter between contemporary abstraction and medieval architecture. Lee’s dark forms do not overwhelm the abbey. Instead, they appear to gather its shadows, extend its silences and give visible shape to the slow rhythms of contemplation.

Lee Bae: En attendant is on view through September 30, 2026, at the Abbey of Beaulieu-en-Rouergue in Ginals, France.