Projects 57 : Bul Lee, Chie Matsui : theMuseum of Modern Art, January 23,March 25, 1997

Author

Lee, Bul, 1964Date1996
Publisher

The Museum of Modern Art
Exhibition URL

www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/232
The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition history—
from our founding in 1929 to the present—isavailable online. It includes exhibition catalogues,primary documents, installation views, and anindex of participating artists.

MoMA© 2017 The Museum of Modern Art

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Installation has recently emerged as a major avantgarde movement in Korea and Japan. It is the mediumof choice for young artists who wish to break withinstitutionalized art forms prevalent in museum andgallery spaces.Though hardly new in Asia— its roots
reach back to the interdisciplinary events of the1960s— the all-embracing nature of installationencouragesthe extravagant gesture that characterizes
an avant-garde. The medium is confrontational inboth form and content, and as such, it is a staple ofalternative art galleriesfound in most urban centers.
Women artists find installation especially attractive.
It's contemporary; no fossilizedtradition sets its boundaries.No hierarchy,male or otherwise, dictatesthe rulesof installation. Artists are free to usewhatever materials
they wish, including domestic items typically associatedwith a woman's place in society. In Japan and Korea,
where social norms are narrowly defined, this freedom
is liberating.
Behind a modern veneer of skyscrapersand Reeboks,
Koreanand Japanesesocietiesremain rigidly structured.
Peoplereceivetheir assignedplace at birth, and during
a lifetime most do not stray far. Women are expectedto
be demure and subservient.Some pioneering womenfight to achieve a broader range of possibilities,
and through this struggle they find a freedom outside
the norm.
chiematsui

Chie Matsui, the daughter of a Buddhist temple family,
learned early in life to hide her emotions and follow
the established path. Growing up in the industrial
city of Osaka,she pursued the traditional art of brushand ink. In a move that broadenedher horizons, Matsui
enrolled as an art student in Kyoto, the old cultural
capital of Japan.Hereshefocused on textile design.Thetraining, which emphasizedstructure over content, set
the style of her early work.

Chie Matsui. Labor 12 (detail). 1995. Installation: mirror and iron. Shown installed atMuseumof Contemporary Art, Tokyo. Collection the artist. Photo: Norihiro Ueno

In her first exhibitions,a seriesof architecturalpieces,Matsuiguided viewers along narrow corridors, up and down stairs,
and onto cramped viewing platforms. The confined areas
epitomizedspaceas people experienceit in Japan.
The focal point of these works was a view of an abstract
landscapeseenthrough a small hexagonalcutout in a wall.
Thevista included symbolicstatementssuch as a large spoolof blue thread unraveling for the duration of the exhibition.
One of the few ways these works transcended convention
was in their materials. Instead of traditional rice paper
screensand wood, Matsui built her structures with whitecinder blocks.
With the deaths of her parents and grandmother, Matsui
lost the authoritative influence of her immediate family. She
stopped constructing reservedarchitectures,and turned hergaze inward. Her new work exploresinteriors, presentedas
lived-in spaceswith domestic allusions.
These rooms are in no way islands of comfort. They areaggressive,filled with grotesqueriesthat would be at homein the world of the Brothers Grimm, or in horrific Japanesefolktales. Like her Kyoto colleagues YasumasaMorimura
and Teiji Furuhashiof the performance group Dumb Type,
Matsui turns to the outrageous to expressher disaffection
with a convention-bound society.
Matsui's recent series of installations, Labor, features thesanmenkyo,a three-part folding mirror commonly found on
a woman's vanity table. The mirror belongs to a bride'strousseau.A woman enters marriage with the sanmenkyo
and two other household objects— a futon, bed, and atansu, small chest of drawers.

Chie Matsui. Untitled. 1992. Installation: lead, bricks, slackedlime. Shown
installed at Art Site, Fukui. Collection the artist. Photo: Tomoaki Ishihara

The sanmenkyo is an interface between a woman's private
persona and the restrained face she carefully arranges for
public appearance. Typically, at the sanmenkyo, she ismaking herself beautiful for a man'sgaze. That is the image
cultivated by advertising, which encourages a Japanese
woman to remain forever a girl-child.

For Matsui, the sanmenkyoalso elicits sorrowful memories.
As in most Japanesehomes, her mother lacked a private
place of her own. During Matsui's childhood, her motherescaped from marital tensions by retreating to hersanmenkyo. She would sit in a corner enfolded in themirror's arms, quietly alone.
In Labor 39 (1997), Matsui's mirrors have metamorphosed.
They are now shattered fragments embedded in a large
circular saw blade, twenty-four inches across.The triptych
mirror that recalled her mother's peaceful moment ofreflection has become a vicious instrument suitable for a
Texaschain saw massacre.

turned instead to soft materials, "feminine" materials,
drawing on her mother's experience as a seamstresssewing handbags.
Sewn sculptures of body parts, mostly oversized
buttocks, breasts, and vaginas, predominated in Lee's
early work. Some pieces stood alone as objects, andothers she appliqued and wore. In a provocativeaction,
Lee flew into Tokyo'sNarita Airport with cloth fetusesand entrails hanging from her dress. Securitydetained
her only briefly, and she continued her outrageous
performanceon the fashionablestreetsof Ginza and at
the Meiji Shrine.

The walls of the installation are layered with massesof
fake fur, stained a bright red the shade of tawdry lipstick,or menstrual blood. The matted fur screamscheap, false,vile. This is not the fur of soft, sophisticatedsex suggested
by a mink coat. Onlylurid sexwould fit in sucha vulgarsetting.
The installation reads like a panel in a manga, a kind ofserializedpulp fiction in comic-book format. Widely read by
all ages, the weekly installments feature the mutilation ofyoung women and the chopping up of salarymen. Thoughviolent and aggressive,mangas are no more than escapist
fantasies.Labor 39 is viscerallyreal.
While respectablecitizens on subways and buses immersethemselves in manga tales of mayhem, little girls in pink
dresses ride along nearby on their matching bicycles
carrying identical pink schoolbags.Modern Japanesesociety,
Matsui insists,can no longer rice-paper over its cracks. Her
work standsas a challengeto the myth of harmony that thecountry presentsto itself and to the world at large.
bulleeBui Lee's life, like her art, was marked from the start byoutrage. Born to parents who led fugitive lives as politicaldissidents,she has produced installationsand performancesthat strike at official authority. While studying sculpture atart school in Seoul, Leespurned hard metal and stone. She

Bul Lee.Diet: ProgrammingIII. 1992. Performance,SagakGallery,Seoul.
Photo: Sang-yoonLee

In her next seriesof performances,Leedealt more directlywith the female body. She discarded her wardrobe
accessories,and her clothes. Draped only in a white
screenlikefabric, Leehad words slide-projectedonto herbody. As the text— sexuallycharged Korean idioms—
played over her figure, she struck a seriesof poses,byturns seductive,charming,and sexy.Herfavoredvignette
was the portrayal of am ne, the Korean term for awoman's body odor, which women everywheredo their
bestto minimize.Lee'sperformancetook its cue from theliteral meaningof am ne—the scentof an animal in heat.
Five years ago, Lee's night stroll through a Seoul fish
market struck an olfactory note. Her idea mated scentand sexuality, flesh and desire, with inevitable decay.
Gathering a school of freshly caught fish, Leetarted up
their silveryscaleswith bright sequinsand sealedthem
individually in ziplock bags.Thesepretty creationscould
fit in a Min Wa folk painting, where plump fish
swimming in ponds are popular metaphors for fertility.
Pinnedto gallery walls, the fish gave off a noxious odor
as they decomposed, while the sequins kept theirsparkle.

Bul Lee.Sorry for Suffering— You Think I'm a Puppyon a Picnic?1990. Twelve-day
performance, TokyoLee's message is pungently clear— beauty is fleeting,especiallyfor ornamented women. Femininedesirability

is a social construct that makes few allowances forcorporeal deterioration.
In deference to Western olfactory sensitivities,the fishin Majestic Splendor (1997) have been sanitized. Eachziplocked fish pinned on the wall includes a chemical
deodorizer,and the rest of the fish are refrigerated in alarge glasscase.Leebelievesmuseum-goersin America
are reluctant to acknowledge that decomposition andits odor are a natural part of life's cycle. As an added
satiric touch, the installation perfumes its surroundings
with a spicyfragrance redolent of a romanticizedOrient.
Within the refrigerated glass case, a human-size net
servesas a supporting structure, accommodating andyielding to its burden. Sequinedfish, caught within the
golden-threadedweb, are entangled in a massof black
tresses, evocative of Oriental beauty. The shiny hairis pierced with hairpins once favored by Korean
courtesans. Crowning it all, a lavish wreath of whitelilies alludes to female purity and the Immaculate
Conception.Another allusion,closerto Lee'sexperience,
comesfrom a Koreanfolk notion that a personsleeping
in a room full of lilies will die, asphyxiated by theflowers' lethal emanation.
The title, MajesticSplendor, is a literal translation of theKoreanHwa Urn, which in turn comesfrom the Sanskrit
Avatamska, one of the major Buddhist sutras. In
contrast to Nirvana,which is largelya self-induced staterealizedby discarding all passionsand needs, Hwa Um
describesthe state of spiritual enlightenment attained
through sacrificefor others.
Recent events added a political connotation to Hwa
Um. During the 1980s, when democratic institutions
had not yet taken hold in Korea,a seriesof antigovernment demonstrations in the city of Kwangju turned
violent, and soldiers killed hundreds of citizens.
The government-controlled newspapers sardonicallyreferred to the massacre as Hwa Um Kwangju,
suggesting that the slain demonstrators had found ajustified end in serviceto their cause.
Lee titles many of her installations Hwa Um, Majestic
Spendor. The austere grandeur of the title contrasts
with the trinkets pinned to the decaying fish, thus
undermining the womanly virtue of self-sacrifice.
Here,as in other works, Leestrips the facade of Koreansocietyand revealsthe dominance of male objectivesin
women's lives.
BarbaraLondon
AssociateCurator
Department of Film and Video
Note: Namesappear in Anglicized order, family name last.

selectedbibliographychie matsui• Abe, Kazunaoand Yukiko Shikata, eds.ARTLab2:Total
Hoverty,Mission Invisible.Tokyo:ARTLAB,1992.
• Ferguson,Bruce,ed. Longing and Belonging: From theFarawayNearby. SITESanta Fe, 1995, pp. 58, 59, 186.
• Hara, Hisako. "Matsui, Chie." In Art & Critique(March 1990), pp. 73-82.
• Koplos, Janet. "Some Kind of Revolution?" In Art inAmerica (May 1992), pp. 111, 153.
• Mitchell, CharlesDee. "Introducing SITESanta Fe."In Art in America (October 1995), pp. 44-47.
• Nakamura, Keiji. Recent Works 7— FlajimeImamura,
Chie Matsui. Osaka:The National Museum of Art, 1989.
• Walle, Mark van de. "SITESanta Fe." In Artforum(November 1995), p. 96.
• Yamawaki,Kazuo.SevenArtists: Aspectsof Contemporary
JapaneseArt. Santa Monica Museum of Art, 1991.

bul lee• Handler,Ruth. "Neonlicht, Eier und atmende
Wattestabchen." In art Das Kunstmagazin(November 1995), pp. 120-21.
• Kim, Sun-Jung. "Interviews with Four KoreanWomenArtists." In ARTAsiaPacificvol. 3, no. 3 (1996), pp.
58-67.
• Lee,JamesB. "Stealth and Sensibility." In ARTnews(April 1995), pp. 128-29.
• Lee,JamesB. "The Aestheticsof Cultural Complicity andSubversion." In Art and Asia Pacificvol. 2, no. 2 (1995),
pp. 52-59.
• Lee, Min-Sook. "Disclosure." In C Magazine(Spring 1995), pp. 18-21 .

Bul Lee. Majestic Splendor (detail). 1993.
Installation: fish, sequins, plastic bags.
Shown installed at Duk Won Gallery,Seoul. Photo: Soon-shin Kim

The projects seriesis made possibleby the Contemporary Exhibition Fund of
The Museum of Modern Art, establishedwith gifts from Lily Auchindoss, Agnes
Gund and Daniel Shapiro,and Mr. and Mrs. RonaldS. Lauder;and grants fromThe Contemporary Arts Council and The Junior Associatesof The Museum ofModern Art, and SusanG. Jacoby.
A portion of this installation is made possibleby a grant from SSamzie by Leather
Deco Co., Ltd.
Additional funding is provided by individual donors.
Editor:RachelPosner
Designer:MakikoUshiba
Production:ClaireCorey© 1997The Museumof ModernArt, NewYorkbiographychie matsui
Born Osaka, Japan, 1960. Livesand works in Osaka
M.F.A. in Textiles, Kyoto City University of Fine Arts, 1984
selected1995

1993
1992
1991

1990
1989
1988
1985
1984

exhibitions

Art in Japan Today, Museum of Contemporary Art,Tokyo
SITESanta Fe, New Mexico
Out of Place, Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada
ARTLab2: MISSIONINVISIBLE,New Pier Hall, Tokyo
SevenArtists: Aspects of Contemporary JapaneseArt, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Los Angeles
The Silent Passion,Tochigi Prefectural Museum ofFine Arts, JapanAperto, Venice Biennale, Corderie dell'Arsenale
Recent Works 7— Hajime Imamura, Chie Matsui,
The National Museum of Art, Osaka
Archi Texture— From the Horizon of Fiber Art,SpiralA/VacoalArt Center, TokyoJapaneseArtists' Books, Franklin Furnace, New YorkArt Now '84, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of ModernArt, Japanbul lee
Born Yongwol, Korea, 1964. Livesand works in Seoul
B.F.A.in Sculpture, Hong Ik University in Seoul, 1987
selected1996
1995

1994

1993

1991
1990

1989

exhibitions

Join Mel, SpiralA/VacoalArt Center, Tokyo
Information and Reality, Fruitmarket Gallery,
Edinburgh
6th Triennale der Kleinplastik, Sudwest LandesBankForum, Stuttgart
Korean Contemporary Art, Kwangju Biennale, Korea
New Asian Art, Japan Foundation Forum, Tokyo
Unforgiven, A Space, Toronto
Technology, Environment, and Information,
Recycling Art Pavilion, Taejon, Korea
Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art,Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
Plastic Spring, Duk Won Gallery, Seoul
Dish Washing, Sonamu Gallery, Seoul
Artoilet (installation), Total Art Museum,Jang Heung, Korea
Sorry for Suffering (twelve-day performance),
Narita Airport, Ginza, Dokiwaza Theater,and Meiji Shrine; Tokyo
Cravings (performance), National Museum ofContemporary Art, Seoul