Lee Bul Is an Artist in Pursuit of Equilibrium

The Korean artist Lee Bul initial arrived to public attention in the 1980s with amazing performances denouncing gender inequality. In a single striking protest in opposition to the abortion ban in her state, she suspended her bare human body, upside down, from the ceiling of an arts center in Seoul.

Nowadays, Ms. Lee, 58, one of South Korea’s primary up to date artists, dedicates her time to portray, sculpture and installation. Her artwork depicts the stunning and the grotesque, earthly landscapes and sci-fi dystopias, human bodies and cyborgs — in a design and style that fuses artwork-building traditions with superior-tech modern tactics.

In the late 1990s, she begun manufacturing meticulously crafted sculptures of cyborgs — correctly proportioned female bodies morphed into figures from manga and science fiction, with odd-searching limbs and armor. A decade later on, she created chandelier-like hanging installations of metal, crystal and beads that had been depictions of futuristic cityscapes.

At Frieze Seoul, beginning Saturday, the Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery and Lehmann Maupin, which signify Ms. Lee, are showing illustrations of her most recent collection of operate, “Perdu.” The collection takes its identify from the title of Marcel Proust’s novel “À la Recherche du Temps Perdu” (“In Lookup of Shed Time”). These is effective — with textures and protrusions that make them one thing of a cross in between portray and sculpture — are produced with mom-of-pearl and acrylic paint.

In a modern video interview, Ms. Lee spoke (with help from an interpreter) of the difficulties posed by the coronavirus pandemic, her standing as a female artist in South Korea and her combined emotions about the art market. The next discussion has been edited and condensed.

The is effective from your new “Perdu” sequence are futuristic but also classically wonderful. Do they signal a return to Korean artwork-producing custom?

I usually use classical or traditional procedures, due to the fact I never just want to bring higher-tech resources or new technology into my art. I want to produce some form of equilibrium.

A equilibrium concerning old and new?

Of course. It’s very important in regardless of what I do, whether or not it be a large sculpture or a drawing.

Why?

Due to the fact very little is ever fully new. Strategies or visions of the potential are constantly pretty aged suggestions. They are rooted in views that human beings have entertained for a really extended time — thoughts that have normally been all-around, and that have been exhausted, even. How can these fatigued suggestions nonetheless prevail? It’s a dilemma that I have constantly been interested in posing in my function.

Curators have described your work as a mix of beauty and horror. There is terrific beauty in the inventive traditions of Korea, which you have studied. Why have you not committed your artwork to pure beauty?

Since I really don’t believe that there is this kind of a factor as pure natural beauty.

We often want to outline issues, or to simplify items. Hoping to recognize the globe or human beings is impossible. How can we have crystal clear concepts or certainties about it?

My will work are advanced structures. When I make them, I consciously and unconsciously hire unique feelings. The conclusion effects are fairly stunning-seeking but are not necessarily just beautiful. There are normally three, 4 or much more conflicting components in them.

Because you are portraying lifestyle by itself, which is a lot more than just attractiveness?

Indeed.

How has the working experience of the pandemic been for you?

I experienced decline at the starting of the pandemic. Afterward, I was confronted with quite massive life-and-dying issues. I felt the need to have to handle individuals issues, to attempt to realize what was taking place, in a way that extended over and above the practical experience of the pandemic itself.

Also, major sculptures and installations require a great deal of individuals. Making them is a long approach, with a lot of sections to it. It was not feasible to make huge sculptures in the pandemic. But I even now preferred to function. So I appeared for one thing that I could do by yourself and arrived up with the “Perdu” sequence.

The standing of girls has normally been an essential concentration of your perform. Why?

Mainly because I’m a woman myself. If we want to recognize ourselves and the environment close to us, we have to look at our individual problem.

Hunting at the situation of gals in Korea and about the environment, the problems are nonetheless ongoing, only they’ve taken a unique condition. We are below the illusion that we are transitioning to a superior existence.

You are 1 of South Korea’s most popular modern day artists, and you are a female. How very well are you recognized in Korean modern society?

It’s a extremely appealing concern. Though the predicament has improved a little, it looks, however, that in Korean society, gals are only approved when they really do not assert their gender, or when their status transcends social course.

Artists are a extremely specific category. They don’t belong to any individual social course. So when another person claims: “She’s a female artist,” there is much less resistance.

I have been performing as an artist for practically 40 decades now. Maybe I have arrived at an age in which folks no lengthier view me as a woman artist, but somewhat as an artist.

Also, my exercise has turn out to be a sort of precedent for the young technology of Korean ladies artists, who are passionately engaged in their own procedures. These younger artists are obtaining superior occupations, and producing in a natural way, most likely for the reason that of this precedent.

As an artist with international representation, you are a component of the artwork market place, and you gain from it. At the identical time, selling prices at the quite best of the artwork industry have exploded, and some is effective market for 9 digits. What are your ideas on this?

The present situation does not make perception. Human drive is always even bigger than something we can ever envision. That’s why it is hard to review.

There are specific risk indicators. No make any difference how tough I attempt not to be connected with these areas, one way or yet another, I am. So my method is, as substantially as feasible, to hold a distance.

As for whether the art sector added benefits me, in some strategies, it does. In other ways, it is a authentic distraction.