Lee Bul wakes up around noon. “I start my day with a cup of coffee and some cigarettes,” she says. She smokes about half a pack a day. “I then head to my studio, where I spend the rest of my day. I get into bed around 4am.”
While most people sleep, Lee, one of South Korea’s most famous living artists, works through the night in her Seoul studio dreaming up provocative artworks that use shimmering materials and sci-fi imagery as metaphors for humanity’s constant, desperate search for perfection. Her exploration of utopian ideals, and how they sometimes collapse into dystopian horror, has earned her international acclaim. In the past five years alone, Lee has had solo exhibitions at museums in the US, the UK, Germany, Canada and Russia, and…
