What is Lee Bul’s idea of utopia?
Since the late 1980s, when she criticized the patriarchy with bold performance art, Lee Bul has persistently exposed the absurdity and contradiction of contemporary society in works relating to gender, popular culture, technology, and the future. In 1997, she grabbed the world’s attention with her exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which shocked visitors with the stench of rotting fish. She then blended visions of utopia and dystopia in her two series Cyborg and Monster, while also exploring pop culture and kitsch in works involving sequins and karaoke. By shaking things up with her striking and unconventional works, Lee Bul forces us to reconsider elements of contemporary life that we have long taken for granted. In this interview, she reveals how her art has been influenced by different concepts of utopia through history, including her own.