Lee Bul facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lee Bul
Mon Grand Recit: Weep into Stones (2005)
Born	1964 Yeongju, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea
Education	Hongik University

Lee Bul (Korean: 이불) is a famous artist from South Korea. She was born in Yeongju in 1964. Her art includes many different styles, like performance, sculpture, installation, and even digital art. She has been creating art since the late 1980s.

Experts say that Lee Bul's art is shaped by both her country's history and her own life. She often challenges old ideas and explores big themes like the human body or the idea of a perfect world (utopia). Her work often shows these themes in many different ways.

About Lee Bul's Life

Lee Bul was born on January 25, 1964, in Yeongju, South Korea. Her parents were very involved in politics when the country was led by Park Chung-Hee, who was a military general and president. Because of this, Lee Bul saw many big changes in society from a young age. Her family often had to move and start over.

After finishing her studies at Hongik University in 1987, Lee Bul briefly joined a group of artists. However, she soon started her own unique artistic journey. She moved away from traditional art materials like wood and metal.

In the 1990s, Lee Bul began making soft sculptures out of fabric. These looked like strange body parts or fantasy creatures. She would wear these creations and perform in public places, like the streets of Seoul and Tokyo.

She became widely known for her series called Majestic Splendor (1991). For this art, she used real fish that were slowly decaying. She decorated them with shiny sequins and placed them in clear plastic bags. This artwork explored ideas about beauty, how fragile things are, and how things change over time. Sequins were special to Lee Bul because her mother used them to make bags and accessories at home when Lee Bul was a child.

Lee Bul's Artworks

I Need You (Monument)

Between 1996 and 1999, Lee Bul created three art pieces that combined photos of herself with large inflatable shapes. One of these, called I Need You (Monument) (1996), featured a big, swelling object. On the front of it was a photo of Lee Bul dressed in a certain way. Viewers could pump air into the object using pedals. This artwork shows how something fragile (like an inflatable) can try to be something grand, but it might not last.

Majestic Splendor

Majestic Splendor is a famous artwork that has been shown all over the world. Lee Bul first displayed it in Seoul in 1991. For this piece, she used real dead fish decorated with sequins and beads. These fish were placed in plastic bags and hung on a gallery wall in a grid pattern. As the exhibition went on, the artwork started to smell very strongly.

In 1997, when it was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Majestic Splendor had to be taken down because of the smell. After this, Lee Bul started using a special chemical called potassium permanganate to help reduce the odor.

Cyborg Series

Lee Bul's Cyborg series (1997-2000) was first shown in Seoul in 1998. These artworks looked like human-machine figures. They didn't have a clear gender but often had a female, hourglass shape. These Cyborg works were well-shaped and appealing, but also looked fragmented. They stood for the idea that humans are not perfect, even if we try to go beyond our physical limits with technology. For example, the cyborgs W1-W4 are four white figures that hang from the ceiling, creating ghostly shadows. These cyborgs mix human and machine parts, showing how technology can change the human experience.

Lee Bul's cyborgs represent both fear and fascination with things that are hard to define or seem strange. Even though her later cyborgs like Amaryllis (1999) and Supernova (2000) look more complete, they can still feel distant to viewers. This is because they have confusing qualities, being both "male and female," "glorious and sinister," or "familiar and alien."

Other Activities and Awards

In 1998, Lee Bul was chosen as one of six artists for the Hugo Boss Prize. This is a very important art award given by the Guggenheim Museum in New York. She was nominated alongside other well-known artists.

Lee Bul has had many solo art shows around the world. These include Live Forever, which traveled to the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and The Power Plant in Toronto. Her art has also been shown in famous museums like Fondation Cartier in Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In 2018, the Hayward Gallery in London held a big exhibition of Lee Bul's work. It was her first major show in London. This exhibition explored how she looks at the human body and its connection to buildings and spaces. It included early performance art videos, sculptures from her famous Monster, Cyborg, and Anagram series, and newer art installations.

In 2020, an exhibition of her work opened in St. Petersburg, Russia. This show highlighted how Lee Bul's art connects with older Russian avant-garde artists who influenced her.

Solo Exhibitions

*denotes a two-person show

Awards and Recognition