Lee Bul's Retrospective at Leeum Museum of Art Surveys Three Decades of Sculptural Work

A major retrospective of South Korean artist Lee Bul's work, titled "Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now," was held at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul. The exhibition, a collaboration with Hong Kong's M+ Museum, featured over 150 pieces including sculptures, installations, drawings, and maquettes. It traced her artistic evolution from early creations to recent projects, positioning her as a key figure in contemporary art globally. Lee Bul's oeuvre explores humanity's failures, with themes of modernity's aspirations turning into melancholic ruins. The show was curated jointly by the two institutions, offering a comprehensive mapping of her ideas and forms. It ran for an unspecified period, highlighting her three-decade career. The retrospective emphasized how collective dreams often become cautionary tales, as noted by historian David Lowenthal's reflections on relics and memory.