Lee Bul's Utopian Encounters with the Russian Avant-garde

By Stephanie Bailey

In 2005, Lee Bul turned her attention to the 'utopian shadows' cast by modernist architectures, from Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace, the stage for London's 1851 Great Exhibition, to Vladimir Tatlin's iconic model for the Monument to the Third International (1920).

'Mon grand récit' was the first series to emerge from this shift, central to which is Mon grand récit: Because everything... (2005): a table-top landscape weighed down by cascades of white epoxy and a mash-up of models for unrealised Constructivist buildings and monuments steeped in pink resin. Hovering over the scene, an LED sign fixed to a metal armature quotes fragments from Paul Bowles' 1949 novel The Sheltering Sky: 'Because everything', 'only really perhaps', yet so limitless'.

Lee Bul, maquette for 'Mon grand récit' (2005). Plaster, steel mesh, wood, silicone, paint, crystal and synthetic beads, aluminium rods, stainless steel wire, foamex. 62.8 x 121.8 x 102.8 cm including wooden base panel. Private collection, Seoul. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Rhee Jae-yong.

The series' title responds to Jean-Francois Lyotard's definition of postmodernity as an 'incredulity' towards meta- or grand narratives. By placing 'mon' (or 'my' in English) before 'grand récit', Lee Bul sought 'to convey a slightly ironic, melancholic stance toward that idea', at once recognising the impossibility of grand narratives while upholding the need for stories—'albeit subjective, imperfect, incomplete'—'that can serve as consolation in [their] absence'...READ MORE