I learnt loads at a great in-depth exploration about Lee Bul at the Hayward!
Her work has a strong sense of autobiography. Plexus starts out by looking like a split torso, but the wires and sequins are about the home-working that Lee Bul’s mother had to do. A political dissident, she couldn’t get easier factory work. Picky and detailed might sound OK, even fun, for artists. But it’s more like boring and enervating if you need to put food on your family’s table.
All the textile work her parents had to do surely influenced Lee Bul’s work. Some of her first pieces were wearables. Here’s an image of her first performance with one of her soft wearable sculptures, sprouting additional limbs and fragile internal organs, in 1988:
I loved how Janis Jefferies talked about ‘textile’ as a verb not a noun
Lastly, I didnt know even the simplest things about Lee Bul’s name. Korean names start with the family name, then the given name. And Lee is pronounced ‘Ee’