Lee’s practice, spanning more than 20 years, began in the mid-1980s with provocative performance-sculptures that quickly distinguished her from her peers. She explains that when she was a student at Seoul’s Hongik University, Korean art was divided between academic modernists painting abstract canvases and those making minjoong misool, “People’s Art.” Lee had to invent her own version of postmodernism, addressing issues like gender and sexuality in outlandish public performances that challenged a patriarchal society’s tolerance for vocal feminist views.
-Art Asia Pacific