The First Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Hwa-Um 1992 Fish, beads, spangles and needlework Collection: The artist SOUTH KOREA BUL LEE Bul Lee was born in 1964 in Youngju, South Korea. She graduated from Hong-lk Uni- versity in 1987 after majoring in sculpture and that same year participated in the '18th Hong-lk Sculptors' Society Exhibition - Alcoholic's Emotion', Fine Art Center, Seoul. Since 1987 she has exhibited frequently, showing both sculpture and performance works, including in 1988 the '19th Hong-lk Sculptors' Society Exhibition', Fine Art Center, Seoul and 'Conference Poem, Art and Dancing: Making Dress', Chang Moo Dancing Theater, Seoul. More recently, the artist has concentrated on installation and performance work. Her exhibitions have included 'Art and Performance and Human Life, Thought and Communication', a performance at Na Woo Gallery, Seoul, 1989; 'First Korea-Japan Performance Festival', Dong Sung Art Center Lobby, Seoul, 1989; 'Tokyo-Seoul Traffic: Installation and Performance', K Gallery, 84 Tokyo, Japan, 1990; and 'Hwa-Um: Installation and Performance', Ja Ha Moon Gallery, Seoul, 1991. The artist's most recent exhibition was 'Plastic Spring: Installation and Performance', DukWon Museum, Seoul, 1993. Bul Lee currently lives and works in Seoul. Most of the works of Bul Lee are beautiful and powerful and express a sense of nature and the self-consciousness of the feminist ego. She is one of the few Korean artists to blend successfully a new awareness of materials, media and behaviour, being from the new generation of artists who, since university, have been working with the cultural and social phenomena of the mid and late 1980s and early 1990s of modern, urbanised Korea, with its contrasts, aggressions and excesses. Aggression, strength, sense of kitsch, energetic positiveness, mastery of diverse materials (generally drawn from non-artistic everyday life), all these characteristics of her work stem from those experiences of the 1980s and early 1990s. Bul Lee's works are almost omni- directional, ranging from sculptural works to installations, works on paper, foods, costume design, network art and perform- ance. However, she is best known as a performance artist and has been acclaimed for her work in recent Korea-Japan perform- ance festivals. 'Song of Fish', 'Artoilet I & II', 'There Fingers Are', and 'Sorry for Suffering: You Think I'm a Puppy on a Picnic?' are some of the titles of the performance and installation works that have made Bul Lee one of the most unusual and most successful performance artists in Korea. Based on an article by Wan Kyung Sung and biographical data supplied by the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea