Lee Won-il studied painting at Chung-Ang University and completed graduate studies at New York University. He held key curatorial positions including Chief Curator at Total Museum of Contemporary Art (1995), Senior Curator at Sungkok Art Museum (1996–2001), and Head of the Curatorial Department at the Seoul Museum of Art (2003–2004). He also served as Exhibition Team Leader for the 3rd Gwangju Biennale (2000) and Assistant Curator for the 5th Gwangju Biennale (2004).
Lee was involved in numerous major international exhibitions, including: Artistic Director of the 2nd International Media Art Biennale_Media_City Seoul (2002), Co-curator of the 6th Shanghai Biennale (2006), Artistic Director of the 4th Seoul International Media Art Biennale_Media_City Seoul (2006), Curator of Thermocline of Art: New Asian Waves at ZKM in Karlsruhe (2007), Co-curator of the 3rd Seville Biennial (Universe, 2008), the 4th Prague Biennale (2009), and the inaugural Nanjing Biennale (2010). From 2009 until his untimely death in 2011 due to heart failure, he served as Senior Curator at the BSI Art Foundation (BSI AG) in Lugano, Switzerland. In 2010, he was ranked 20th among “101 Top Curators Worldwide” by the Italian art magazine Flash Art (March/April issue).
SMB04 (2006), SMB02 (2002) Artistic Director, SMB Team
SMB04 (2006) Curatorial Advisory Committee Member
SMB04 (2006) Organizing Committee Member
SMB02 (2002) Luna’s Flow Catalogue Editor
SMB02 (2002) Luna’s Flow Catalogue Booklet Editor
