Image: M+, Hong Kong
M+ in Hong Kong has opened ‘Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now’, a comprehensive survey of the South Korean artist’s career to date. The exhibition runs in the museum’s West Gallery, L2, from 14 March to 9 August 2026 and brings together major works from Lee Bul’s studio and from collections across Asia and beyond.
The show is structured in three sections that trace the development of Lee’s practice. It begins with an immersive landscape of architectural installations from the artist’s ‘Mon grand récit’ series, which started in 2005 and continues today. M+ says these works invite visitors to reflect on the grand narratives of the modernist project and on the aesthetics of failed utopias. This opening section also includes two-dimensional works from the ‘Untitled (Willing To Be Vulnerable—Velvet)’ and ‘Perdu’ series, both ongoing from 2016.
The second chapter focuses on Lee’s ‘Cyborg’ and ‘Anagram’ series from the late 1990s and early 2000s, the period that first brought her international acclaim. According to the museum, these works draw on critical theory, art history and science fiction, and examine figuration, gender and beauty in an increasingly technological world. By placing these pieces at the center of the exhibition, M+ frames Lee’s early work as foundational to the themes that continue to run through her later practice.
The final section is arranged to evoke an artist’s studio and presents drawings, sketches and maquettes that show how Lee conceptualises and realises her artworks. Across the exhibition, the museum emphasizes the breadth of media involved in her practice, from monumental installations to smaller-scale works and preparatory materials.
Lee Bul, born in South Korea in 1964, is described by M+ as one of the most prominent contemporary artists to emerge from Asia in recent decades. The exhibition’s travelling history begins at Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul, where it debuted in September 2025, before moving to Hong Kong in March 2026. M+ says it will next tour to other venues in Europe and North America, though those venues have not been listed in the source material provided.
A monograph will accompany the exhibition, co-published by M+, Leeum Museum of Art and Thames & Hudson. The publication will include new texts by international writers and scholars. M+ also lists guided services in the gallery on Tuesdays to Sundays, with sessions at 11:15, 12:00, 13:00, 15:15, 16:00 and 17:00, lasting 10 to 15 minutes for visitors with a valid M+ ticket.
The exhibition is also referenced in M+’s summer programme materials, which note that ‘Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now’ runs until 9 August. Those materials place the show alongside other exhibitions and public programmes at the museum, while the Lee Bul presentation remains a separate survey exhibition in the West Gallery, L2.
