Installation view of Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now, 2026. © Lee Bul. Photo: Lok Cheng. Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now
14th Mar – 9th Aug 2026
M+, Hong Kong
Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now is generously supported by the M+ Lee Bul Friends Circle – Silver Patron Octone Foundation.
Lee Bul (South Korean, born 1964) is one of the most prominent contemporary artists to emerge from Asia in recent decades. Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now is a comprehensive survey of her career, featuring major works from the artist’s studio and collections across Asia and beyond. Her oeuvre interrogates the evolving relationships between body and society, humanity and technology, and nature and civilisation, as well as the underlying forces that influence these dynamics.
The exhibition at M+ unfolds in three sections, tracing Lee Bul’s evolving practice. It opens with an immersive landscape featuring key architectural installations from her Mon grand récit series (2005–present). This series marks a pivotal shift in Lee’s work, as her focus moved from the body to architecture, landscape, and the history of modernity. The title, which translates to “My Grand Narrative,” references Jean-François Lyotard’s statement about the impossibility of grand narratives in contemporary life. By including the personal pronoun mon, Lee wanted to express “the necessity of devising stories — albeit subjective, imperfect, and incomplete ones — that can serve as consolation in the absence of grand narratives”. This section also includes a selection of two-dimensional works from the Untitled (Willing To Be Vulnerable—Velvet) series (2016-ongoing) and Perdu series (2016–ongoing).
Installation view of Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now, 2026. © Lee Bul. Photo: Wilson Lam. Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
The second chapter presents examples of Lee’s groundbreaking Cyborg and Anagram series from the late 1990s and early 2000s, which first brought her international acclaim. Drawing on diverse references from art history and science fiction, these striking works reimagine the visions of figuration, gender, and beauty within an increasingly technological world. Suspended in space, the pristine white figurative sculptures recall the classic marble statues of ancient Greece. Hovering between fragility and monumentality, they stage a transhistorical dialogue that unsettles the Western canon’s fixation on the idealised, gendered body.
Installation view of Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now, 2026. © Lee Bul. Photo: Wilson Lam. Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
The final section, evoking an artist’s studio, features a constellation of drawings, sketches, and maquettes, revealing how Lee conceptualises and realises her artworks.
The travelling exhibition debuted at Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, in September 2025, before opening at M+ in March 2026. It will then tour to other venues in Europe and North America. A comprehensive monograph is co-published by M+, Leeum Museum of Art, and Thames & Hudson and features new texts by international writers and scholars.