GENESIS CELEBRATES OPENING OF 'THE GENESIS FACADE COMMISSION: LEE BUL, LONG TAIL HALO' AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
- “The Genesis Facade Commission: Lee Bul, Long Tail Halo,” opens at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and will be on view through May 27, 2025
- Exhibition features four new site-specific works by artist Lee Bul
- Genesis Art Initiatives celebrates art as authentic experience to discover truly meaningful and valuable aspects of life by collaborating with leading institutions and cultural visionaries
SEOUL, Sept. 12, 2024 — Genesis celebrates the opening of “The Genesis Facade Commission: Lee Bul, Long Tail Halo” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. On view from Sept. 12 through May 27, 2025, the exhibition features new works by artist Lee Bul, born in 1964, that challenge what sculptures can reveal about our times. Responding to The Met’s iconic facade as a site for statues, Lee’s towering sculptures are at once classical and contemporary, forthcoming and elusive.
This exhibition is Lee’s first major project in New York since her solo exhibition at the New Museum in 2002. Lee is known for her sophisticated use of both highly industrial and labor-intensive materials, such as fabric, metal, plastic, silicone, porcelain and glass, incorporating artisanal practices as well as technological advancements into her work. Her sculptures, often evoking bodily forms that are at once classical and futuristic, address the aspirations and disillusions that come with progress.
The new pieces featured in this exhibition comprise four sculptures made of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) or polycarbonate parts over steel armatures. “Long Tail Halo: CTCS #1” and “Long Tail Halo: CTCS #2” flank the museum entrance and their human-like forms recall Cubist and Futurist masterpieces, scholar’s rocks, Greco-Roman classics, and historical armors in The Met collection.
Similarly abstract, “Long Tail Halo: Secret Sharer II” and “Long Tail Halo: Secret Sharer III” each hunch over a cascade of fragmented prisms; their behavior evokes the artist’s pets that acted as her guardians. The artworks presented in this exhibition symbolize, both independently and in dialogue, the abiding human desire for progress and perfection, while hinting at the failures and repercussions inherent to these pursuits. Together they reflect the endless revisions and transformations in the long narratives of history.
"'The Genesis Facade Commission: Lee Bul, Long Tail Halo' invites us to reconsider cultural norms and values through the artist’s unbounded and timeless practices," said DooEun Choi, Art Director of Hyundai Motor. "We anticipate that this exhibition will trigger a profound experience that transcends spatial and temporal boundaries."
“Lee Bul’s extraordinary sculptures explore the complexities of the human condition through powerful, hybrid forms that draw from the past while speaking to present day hopes and anxieties about the future,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “This commission series invites artists to engage with, transform, and even challenge The Met’s iconic Fifth Avenue facade, and we’re tremendously excited to see Lee’s works now unveiled.”
The upcoming installation is the first under a new multiyear partnership between Genesis and The Metropolitan Museum of Art to present the annual contemporary art commission, which is newly named The Genesis Facade Commission. Launched in 2019, The Met invites artists each year to create new site-specific works of art for the museum’s Fifth Avenue facade niches, inspiring authentic connections between the artist, The Met's audiences, as well as the broader global art scene.
“The Genesis Facade Commission: Lee Bul, Long Tail Halo” is the fifth in the series. Previous installations featured works by Wangechi Mutu (2019), Carol Bove (2021), Hew Locke (2022) and Nairy Baghramian (2023). The 2025 Genesis Facade Commission will feature new works by Jeffrey Gibson.
Genesis Art Initiatives was launched in parallel to Hyundai Motor’s decade-long partnerships with global museums and cultural organizations, and celebrates art as an authentic experience to discover the truly meaningful and valuable aspects of life by collaborating with leading institutions and cultural visionaries. Through shared endeavors, Genesis aspires to enrich today’s vibrant cultural dialogue by amplifying timeless insights that permeate the world around us and the ever-unfolding landscape of the years to come.
Genesis Art Initiatives will continue to expand its global reach through a partnership with Tate Modern for “The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh,” on view from May 1 to Oct. 26, 2025, followed by significant projects around the globe.