Lee Bul

From 1996 and 1999, Lee completed three mixed media installations that incorporate photographs of the artist with large scale inflatable forms. One of these installations, entitled I Need You (Monument) (1996), features a swelling, phallic object with a photograph of an orientalized and lingerie-clad Lee on the front. Beneath the mass lies an array of pedals for viewers to further aerate the object. Notable is Lee's juxtaposition of title and medium, which contrasts the vulnerability of inflatables with hegemonic ideas of what a monument is made of. Furthermore, her use of pedals draws attention to society's contribution to traditional ideals.[12]

Lee's series of cyborg sculptures created in 1997-2011 became well-known.[13] The series started with Cyborg Red and Cyborg Blue in 1997–98. These works, as well as those that appear later in the series, feature decapitated anthropomorphic forms that are often missing an arm, leg, or both. Although the bodies read as female due to their hourglass shape, the idea of a cyborg transcends distinctions such as gender, race, and class. The cords attached to the figures appear to signify recovery and rebuilding. Rather than damage done intentionally to the piece such as Egyptian Sphinx, these sculptures convey the message that figures can be created the way they would like to be regardless of gender or background.[14] According to the Guggenheim museum, which owns and displays two of Lee's sculptures, "Embodied in these uncanny human surrogates are the desires and anxieties surrounding genetic engineering, cloning, and cosmetic surgery, concerns that arise from the increasing conflation of the body and technology." [11]The artist has stated that the cyborg is a trope for "our fear and fascination with the uncategorizable, the uncanny."[15]

Having been installed in a number of galleries around the world, Lee created her first rendition of Majestic Splendor in 1991 and has displayed it in exhibits several times since then. Majestic Splendor features several real dead fish that are decorated with sequins, beads, and other small flashy items. They are placed in plastic bags and pinned to the wall of the gallery in a grid pattern. Since they are real fish then over the course of the exhibition they begin to smell. In 1997, during the Projects showing at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the exhibit had to be removed because the smell got so powerful that guards at the museum were becoming physically ill. After this Lee began using potassium permanganate, which is combustible, to help neutralize the smell.

In 2018 Majestic Splendor was intended to be on display at the Hayword Gallery in London as part of Lee Bul: Crashing, however, after being made aware of the potential dangers of potassium permanganate it was decided that the work would not be suitable to have on public display. While it was being removed from the premises the potassium permanganate activated and started a small fire, delaying the opening of the exhibition.[16]

*denotes a two-person show