Lee Bul was born in 1964 in Yeongju, South Korea, and currently lives and works in Seoul. She graduated from Seoul’s Hongik University with a BFA in Sculpture.

Known for a pioneering interdisciplinary approach honed over the course of four decades, Lee Bul has created a body of work spanning sculpture, installation, performance, and painting. She first gained international recognition in the 1990s for a provocative, genre-defying art that interrogates themes of utopian ideals, technological transformation, and the fragility of human ambition. For early performances and soft sculptures that challenged societal norms, she often incorporated cyborg imagery to explore posthumanism and gender politics.

Over time, Lee’s practice has expanded to encompass large-scale immersive installations utilizing mirrored surfaces, organic-mechanical hybrids, and architectural structures to engage viewers in a multi-sensory experience of space and perception. Deeply influenced by philosophy, literature, and experimental architecture, her oeuvre examines the intersections of technology, history, and speculative futures. Concepts of freedom and liberation are deeply embedded in Lee’s work, both thematically and formally. Her artistic practice can be understood as an ongoing exploration of constraints—whether political, societal, or artistic—and an imperative to transcend them.

Lee Bul is recognized as one of South Korea’s most prominent contemporary artists and has held solo exhibitions at major museums and institutions worldwide, including: Art Sonje Center (Seoul, 1998); New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, 2002); Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (Sydney, 2004); Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain (Paris, 2007); Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, 2012); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (Seoul, 2014); Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2015); Hayward Gallery (London, 2018); Martin-Gropius-Bau (Berlin, 2018); and Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul, 2021). A major retrospective of Lee Bul, co-curated by Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, and M+, Hong Kong, opened at Leeum in September 2025, followed by its presentation at M+ in March 2026, before touring to other international venues.

Lee’s work is held in prominent public collections throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Tate Modern, London; British Museum, London; Musée d’Art Moderne Grand Duc Jean, Luxembourg; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; M+, Hong Kong; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa; Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul; Amorepacific Museum of Art, Seoul; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea.