The Hayward Gallery will present an exhibition of Lee Bul’s work from the 30th May.
This upcoming exhibition is a mid-career retrospective of one of the most acclaimed contemporary artists from Asia, Lee Bul, exploring the full range of her work.
The display is set to feature new works by the artist including her specially commissioned installation, and a recent series of silk velvet paintings, which will be shown alongside her most recent series of mixed media works in which Lee Bul combines organic and architectural elements.
Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Hayward Gallery, the exhibition will also be a celebration of 1960s iconic Brutalist architecture with a striking new site-specific installation that will accentuate the exterior of the gallery, responding to the building’s history.
Throughout her career Lee Bul has received a lot of international recognition for her inventive and provocative practice involving painting, sculpture, performance and installation.
The display will feature documentation from the artist’s early performances, in which she would unexpectedly appear in public spaces, such as airports, wearing monstrous soft-fabric forms with sprouting appendages that resemble body parts. The show will also highlight the different ways in which Lee Bul has responded to salient issues of her time with works that fuse different materials, genres, disciplines and traditions.
Talking about the exhibition Ralph Rugoff, Director, Hayward Gallery said: “We are particularly delighted to present this pioneering artist during the Hayward’s 50th anniversary year. Lee Bul’s ongoing engagement with utopian modernism pairs perfectly with the democratic aspirations of the Hayward’s own adventurous architecture. The special site-specific commission that she will be creating will strikingly transform the exterior of the building in a manner that is both pointed in its historical references and visually charged.”
Those visiting the exhibition will also see Lee Bul’s intricate preparatory drawings and sketches which provide an insight into the artist’s creative process, and the ways in which Lee Bul develops and explores the different strands of her artistic practice, as well as her recent, immersive, and often reflective, architectural sculptures and environments.
The Hayward Gallery’s Lee Bul exhibition will be on display from the 30th May until the 19th August. For more information visit: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/hayward-gallery-art/lee-bul-wayward-wander