Tate Picks Mire Lee, Sculptor of Goopy and Horrifying Installations, for Turbine Hall Commission

Sculptor Mire Lee, a rising star of the international art scene, has been selected to do Tate Modern‘s Turbine Hall commission, which sets grand, epic artworks within the London museum’s vast atrium.

Lee’s Turbine Hall is set to go on view to the public on October 8, ensuring that it will be among the most talked-about presentations in the British capital during the Frieze London art fair, which opens days later. And while details of Lee’s Turbine Hall project were not announced, her work, if it is anything like her past ones, will inspire horror and awe in equal measure.

She is known for large-scale installations that enlist goopy materials, such as silicone and clay, that are piped around grates, armatures, and other structures. Their sculptural elements typically look like entrails, and as her goopy materials are pushed around her installations by motors, drips and squishes abound.

The artist, who is based in Amsterdam and Seoul, told Art in America in 2021, “I tend to make things that resemble lumps—they’re anonymous or deformed. Do I think my own work is grotesque? Maybe a bit.”

Over the past few years, Lee has appeared in a range of biennials and museum shows, most notably the 2022 Venice Biennale, where she exhibited a tall scaffold that appeared to be draped with guts. Last year, at the New Museum in New York, she filled an entire floor with an installation alluding to the work of Julia Kristeva, who memorably theorized the concept of abjection.

Karin Hindsbo, director of Tate Modern, said in a statement, “Mire Lee is one of today’s most intriguing and original contemporary artists and we are delighted she will be creating her first work in the UK here at Tate Modern. Lee produces powerful sculptures, and we look forward to seeing how she transforms the iconic Turbine Hall with her subversive, multi-sensory forms.”