Lee Bul (b. 1964, South-Korea) lives and works in Seoul. With a sensibility that is closely aligned with science fiction, Lee Bul’s work investigates the ways that modern art, architecture and technology have shaped both our real and imagined worlds. The artist draws inspiration from diverse sources – including film, literature and modern architecture, as well as European and South Korean history – to create hybrid forms that convey a fantastical and often disconcerting dystopian vision. Made from deliberately contradictory materials that range from organic silk and mother of pearl to manufactured fibreglass and silicone, her work explores the utopian potentials but also the darker undercurrents of an increasingly technological culture.
Photo: Lee Bul, Willing To Be Vulnerable – Metalized Balloon, 2015–2016. Courtesy Lee Bul Studio and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London • Paris • Salzburg • Seoul.