All Photos By Gail

Monsters are usually pictured as scary creatures that represent the unknown. They stoke our deepest fears. Lee Bul’s version, Monster: Black (1998 – 2011) , harnesses sequence, crystals, dried flowers, and glass beads to create a defiant figure of social liberation.

The headless creature of rootlike limbs is in fact a soft and malleable fabric form that reconfigures the stuff of domestic labor. Shimmering material associated with superficial ornament, and the trappings of glamour are transformed into a body that writhes, twists, and expands, commanding space and pushing against the categories and expectations we place upon the monstrous.

Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art as Part of the Exhibit Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie.