From Cyborg to Silver Zeppelin.
M HKA Presents Major Lee Bul Survey

This Autumn at M HKA in Antwerp, Belgium

12/11/2026

Installation view ‘Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now’, M HKA, 2026. Photo: We Document Art.

Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now
13.11.26 - 07.03.27
M HKA, Antwerp

Today, M HKA opens Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now, the artist’s most comprehensive survey to date. Lee Bul is a key figure in contemporary art, with an internationally recognised practice. Featuring major installations — including Willing To Be Vulnerable — Metalized Balloon (2019), a ten-metre-long zeppelin – the exhibition unfolds across two floors of the museum, a first for a solo exhibition at M HKA.

Tracing key developments in her practice from the late 1990s to today, the exhibition brings together more than 150 works, ranging from drawings, maquettes and two-dimensional works to sculptures and monumental installations. Across this diverse body of work, Lee Bul explores modernist and utopian visions of the future, architecture and the historical avant-garde.

Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now is co-organised by Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul and M+ in Hong Kong, in collaboration with M HKA. The exhibition premiered in Seoul in September 2025 for a four-month run and travelled to Hong Kong from March to August 2026. M HKA in Antwerp will be its first and only European stop. The tour will conclude at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa in late 2027.

Lee Bul’s Major Survey Tours to Europe

Lee Bul (b. 1964) first rose to prominence in the late 1980s with performances exploring the relationship between the body, gender and society within South Korea’s shifting social and political landscape. From the 1990s onwards, she increasingly turned to sculpture and architectural installations, where her iconic Cyborg series marked a turning point in her practice. Today, Lee Bul is an artist of global significance. She has exhibited widely in Europe, with presentations at venues such as Hayward Gallery and Gropius Bau.

Over the next four months, Antwerp will host the only European presentation of this comprehensive survey. Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now is co-organised by Leeum Museum of Art and M+ in collaboration with M HKA. The touring exhibition premiered at Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul, travelled to M+ in Hong Kong, and now continues its international tour at M HKA. The tour will conclude at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa in late 2027.

Lee Bul draws inspiration from utopian designs and modernist architecture: grand visions of an ideal society. Through her work, she questions what possible futures we can imagine and how these futures shape the relationship between the body and society, between humans and technology, and between nature and civilization. Her sculptures shimmer and seduce, but beneath their beauty lies uncertainty. For not every dream of progress ends well.

“While Lee Bul’s work engages with major themes, it remains highly accessible and full of hope. That is what makes her work so relevant today. M HKA looks back on Lee Bul’s artistic practice through more than 150 works from her studio and from collections around the world. We are especially pleased to bring her expansive body of work to Europe and to Antwerp for the first time.”
— Nav Haq, Senior Curator and Associate Director at M HKA

“A leading figure in contemporary art, Lee Bul has developed a remarkably broad and deeply layered body of work over the past four decades, making significant contributions to the global art world. Organised through a curatorial collaboration between Leeum Museum of Art and M+, this exhibition considers the inseparable nature of hope and failure in human progress, a theme that resonates with particular urgency today.”
— Doryun Chong, Artistic Director and Chief Curator at M+, and exhibition co-curator

“Through her tireless passion and ever-evolving artistic practice, Lee Bul has reflected on humanity’s past and present while offering a compelling vision of possible futures. The exhibition unfolds as an unpredictable landscape where autobiographical memories, historical narratives, and sociopolitical contexts intertwine, inviting visitors into open-ended, multilayered encounters with her artistic world.”
— June Young Kwak, Head of Modern and Contemporary Art Department II, Leeum Museum of Art and Hoam Museum of Art and exhibition co-curator

Welcome to Lee Bul’s world

Lee Bul’s sculptural installations make the exhibition an immersive one. In each gallery, key central works are in dialogue with smaller pieces. “Lee Bul will occupy two floors entirely. This is the first time we have ever done this for a solo exhibition at M HKA”, Haq continues. “We want to immerse everyone, from connoisseurs to curious visitors, in the impressive work of one of the world’s most influential contemporary artists practicing today”.

One of the eyecatchers is a ten-metre-long zeppelin: Willing To Be Vulnerable — Metalized Balloon occupies the museum’s Pointed Hall. “For many Belgians, the zeppelin immediately brings to mind the inventive, avant-garde work of Panamarenko”, Haq explains. “But there is a significant difference in meaning. Lee Bul’s zeppelin refers to the Hindenburg, the airship that went up in flames in 1937.

The same hall features a work from the Aubade series. This cityscape reveals the complex thinking that often lies behind the enormous structures that make up our cities. Utopian messages in Esperanto, the ‘universal’ language, are projected onto it.

On the upper floor will be shown Aubade V, another work from this series: a tower-like structure made from dismantled guard posts from the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea. The message on the LED screen is an astronomical fact describing the Earth's tilt, which makes the countries' ideological conflicts seem small in comparison.

Cyborg, Lee Bul’s iconic series from the late 1990s, marked her shift from performance to sculptural practice, and from the body to the-future-of-the-body. The cyborgs are created with technological enhancements that recall both classical Greco-Roman style-sculpture and the aesthetics of science fiction. A key Cyborg work is presented here alongside porcelain pieces connected to the series.

From studio to installation

Visitors are also given insight into Lee Bul’s studio and creative process. An extensive selection of sketches, drawings and maquettes demonstrate her ideas emerge and evolve: from initial concept and scale models to life-sized installations. Her distinctly hands-on practice makes this preparatory phase all the more important. Though the sleek, glossy installations may appear high-tech, they are in fact entirely handmade.

Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now is a richly visual, hopeful and accessible exhibition for visitors of all ages. Like Panamarenko, Lee Bul invites visitors to look at the world with greater imagination and a stronger sense of invention. Her work carries them into a wondrous world where dreams, technology and architecture meet.

Credits

Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now is co-curated by June Young Kwak, Head of Modern and Contemporary Art Department II, Leeum Museum of Art and Hoam Museum of Art, and Doryun Chong, Artistic Director and Chief Curator at M+, with Heyeon Kim, Curator at Leeum Museum of Art and Hoam Museum of Art and Sunny Cheung, Curator of Design and Architecture at M+. The presentation at M HKA is organised by Nav Haq, Associate Director at M HKA.

About Lee Bul

Lee Bul (South Korea, born 1964) is widely recognised as the foremost Korean artist of her generation. Educated in Seoul, she broke with her academic training (BFA in sculpture from Hongik University, Seoul) to establish her early reputation with provocative genre- and discipline-crossing works exploring themes of the female body, beauty and decay. Since the early 2000s, her work has engaged with themes of utopian modernity, the historical avant-garde in art and architecture, and the rise and fall of ideas aimed at reinventing the world.

Her oeuvre has been deeply informed by her experience growing up as the daughter of political dissidents during a period of turbulent political and social transformation in Korea. Now in the fourth decade of her career, she is a pioneering figure to a younger generation of artists influenced by the sensibilities and methods of her practice, from her early iconoclastic performances to her multi-sensory installations and material explorations that have pushed the formal and conceptual boundaries of visual art.

Lee Bul’s works have been showcased in major institutions throughout the world, including the Seoul Museum of Art; Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; the Hayward Gallery, London; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris; the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul; and Art Sonje Center, Seoul. In 2024, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, invited Lee to create sculptures for the niches of the museum’s iconic Fifth Avenue facade; a Genesis Facade Commission, the project was titled Lee Bul, Long Tail Halo.

About M+

M+ is Asia’s global museum of contemporary visual culture. Located in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District (WestK), it is dedicated to collecting, exhibiting and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The landmark M+ building on Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbourfront was designed by the world-renowned architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron in partnership with TFP Farrells and Arup. It spans a total floor area of 65,000 square metres, featuring thirty-three galleries alongside a Learning Hub, Moving Image Centre, Research Centre and Roof Garden, among other event and programming spaces. The M+ Facade is one of the largest LED screens in the world, showcasing commissioned artworks on the Hong Kong skyline every evening.

The museum stewards a multidisciplinary permanent collection that includes objects from regions across Asia and beyond. A highlight is the M+ Sigg Collection, one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of Chinese contemporary art. Today, M+ is a nexus for researching and presenting contemporary visual culture, inspiring thought and curiosity.

About Leeum Museum of Art

Renowned for its visionary collection and dynamic exhibitions spanning centuries and genres, Leeum Museum of Art provides a setting in which the timeless beauty of traditional Korean art, the vibrancy of contemporary practice, and the fluid dialogue of global artistic discourse come together.

Since opening its doors in Hannam-dong, Seoul, in 2004, Leeum has served as a cultural anchor, fostering dialogue between past and present to forge new pathways toward the future. The museum functions as a platform for exchange, bridging East and West as well as local and global perspectives, and inspiring fresh interpretations of art across time and place.

Its iconic architectural complex—designed by Mario Botta, Jean Nouvel and Rem Koolhaas—epitomises this mission, harmonising tradition with innovation in its spatial and architectural design. Through its robust programming of exhibitions, educational initiatives, and international collaborations, Leeum continues to advance Korea’s presence and influence within the global cultural landscape.

About M HKA

The Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M HKA) is a leading institution for contemporary art and visual culture. The museum has its roots in Antwerp's avant-garde tradition and has developed strong international engagements.

Each season, M HKA offers an ambitious range of large-scale exhibitions and intimate presentations, showcasing both established artists and emerging talent.

M HKA's collection includes national and international contemporary art from the 1960s avant-garde until now, with key works by renowned artists such as Gordon-Matta Clark, Panamarenko and Otobong Nkanga, as well as leading ensembles from various corners of the world, with a strong focus on Eurasia.

Credit: Installation view ‘Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now’, M HKA, 2026. Foto: We Document Art.