He was born in Seoul in 1926, he received B.A. in art history at Tokyo National University, Japan in 1956. Afterwards he went to Germany and majored in music history at Munich University in 1958. Since 1963 he participated in Fluxus movement, and had his solo exhibition at Galeria Bonino, New York in 1965.Since then, he had his retrospective exhibition at Whitney Museum, New York (1982) and produced "The More the Better" for 1988 Seoul Olympics. He exhibited at Venice Biennale 1993 in German section and won the Golden lion, and was awarded the Asian Culture prize in Fukuoka, Japan in 1995. He was included in the "World's Top 100 Artists" selected by the German magazine Focus in 1996, and "Top 100 Artists" by Germany's Capital in 1997.