Lee Bul Retrospective at M HKA Antwerp: Only European Stop, November 2026

The M HKA, Antwerp's museum of contemporary art, hosts the sole European leg of a Lee Bul retrospective featuring more than two hundred works, running from 13 November 2026 to 7 March 2027. The exhibition originated in Seoul and traveled through Hong Kong before reaching Antwerp. Its chronological thread reaches back to 1998, the year the South Korean artist abandoned bodily performance and soft sculpture for the cyborg figure. The Cyborg and Anagram series present amputated female-machine bodies, polished like luxury prostheses yet as incomplete as they are. Later works My Grand Narrative, begun in 2005, and Perdu, begun in 2016, extend the inquiry to the scale of landscape and monument. A dedicated section returns to drawings and maquettes, the preparatory stage of her practice. Lee Bul's architectural models of ideal cities — built from glass beads, mirrors, cables and chains — stand like suspended ruins, and mirrors placed throughout force viewers to see their own silhouettes cut into the glass. Born in South Korea under a regime in convulsion, she treats utopia as matter that rots; her critique of technology excavates debris rather than anticipating futures. The museum is located at Leuvenstraat 32, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium, open Tuesday to Sunday 11am–6pm, with late opening until 9pm on the last Thursday of each month. Admission is €14, reduced €8, free for under-18s.