Korean artist-exhibition
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| ▲ A visitor takes a photo of Lee Bul's "Via Negativa" at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul on Sept. 1, 2025. (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ Lee Bul's "Willing To Be Vulnerable -- Metalized Balloon" and "Long Tail Halo: CTCS #1" are on display at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul on Sept. 1, 2025. (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ A visitor checks out Lee Bul's art works at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul on Sept. 1, 2025. (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ South Korean contemporary artist Lee Bul speaks during a press conference at Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul on Sept. 1, 2025. (Yonhap) |
Korean artist-exhibition
Lee Bul's decadeslong artistic odyssey comes to Leeum
By Woo Jae-yeon
SEOUL, Sept. 1 (Yonhap) -- Leading contemporary artist Lee Bul, who is arguably more well known outside South Korea than within her home country, will be the subject of a major career survey at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul.
The museum will present "Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now," which it described as the country's first survey exhibition dedicated to the artist, showcasing an extensive body of her work with some 150 pieces created from the late 1980s to the present.
Ever since representing South Korea at the 1999 Venice Biennale, the 61-year-old artist has been widely recognized and celebrated overseas, sparking soaring interest in her art from foreign institutions.
"Lee Bul carved her way through Korea's male-dominated art world in the late 1980s, establishing herself as an innovator," said Kim Sung-won, Leeum's deputy director, during a press conference Monday about the upcoming exhibition.
"Her innovative spirit continued thereafter. From the late 1990s onward, she demonstrated a body of work that penetrated the spirit of the times, expressing human failure and frustration through her own unique sculptural languages."
The exhibition "poses questions about the essence of our time and deeply illustrates her as a social observer who shows a sharp insight into the era," she said, adding, "the moment you step into the exhibition space, you will have the experience of entering the artist's mind."
Visitors will be greeted by a giant metalized balloon suspended above their heads at the exhibition's entrance, which was first unveiled at the 20th Sydney Biennale in 2016. A 17-meter-long giant airship balloon, it is one of the artist's most iconic large-scale installations, symbolizing the failed utopian dreams of modernity.
Continuing this theme is "Civitas Solis II," another large-scale installation that further demonstrates her exploration of this subject. The title is taken from "Civitas Solis," or "City of the Sun," a utopian philosophical book by Tommaso Campanella. A vast majority of Leeum's Blackbox exhibition hall is consumed by this sprawling city-like sculpture composed of plexiglass, mirrors and LED lights.
Also on display is "Cyborg W6," part of her celebrated Cyborg series (1997-2001), a sculpture of a fragmented female body that challenges objectification while emphasizing incompleteness.
The exhibition also features "Via Negative," an immersive mirror installation first unveiled in 2012 and later reconfigured in different versions. Visitors can navigate a large maze of mirrors, encountering endless reflections and changing perspectives. The work embodies the artist's interest in space and perception.
When asked how she has defined her identity as an artist since first gaining recognition in the late 1990s, she said: "I don't define myself. In fact, even back then, it was not something I defined myself. I simply created works based on my interests."
But she emphasized her belief that the past is never truly gone and that it constantly comes back.
"The past is not simply something that has passed or been forgotten. It always returns to the present. And it does so through infinite repetition," she said. "What the audience chooses and experiences from among the past, present and future forms that I continuously breathe into my work, that is entirely up to what they desire."
"Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now" is set to open on Thursday and run through Jan. 4 next year. Co-organized by Leeum and Hong Kong's M+ Museum, it is scheduled to continue as a touring exhibition overseas after this Leeum exhibition.
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