Mire Lee

Mire Lee's large-scale, immersive installations often comprise leaky machines and quasi-organic structures that appear to drip and decay. Faulty motorized elements seem to groan under their own operation, resisting the seamless efficiency commonly associated with modern technology. Instead of polished surfaces and smooth operation, Mire Lee stages a world of resistance and decay. Her uncanny, factory-like scenarios make matter appear unstable and visceral, reminiscent of bodily fluids, flesh, and industrial waste, directly affecting the senses and bodies of the audience.

At the Secession, the air feels thick – stuffy, hot, tense. The otherwise pristine terrazzo floor of the exhibition space shows traces of a viscous substance spreading and flowing down a slanted wall. Over the course of the exhibition, crusts will accumulate there, forming a growing skin of rusty scabs. This partition serves as a barrier, concealing a large cement mixer that rotates sluggishly in the background. The machine emits a dull, continuous sound, like a monotonous pulse – its belly cut open like a wound, its inner core exposed, unable to rest.

This kinetic apparatus moves between vitality and collapse. Inside it, an entropie cycle unfolds: mechanically recalibrated and altered, the drum will continue to turn throughout the exhibition. A tangle of PVC pipes runs through the space like a vascular system, pumping a liquid solution containing, among other things, iron oxide, brass powder, and sawdust in endless loops. The concrete mixer's spiral agitator sets the viscous red substance in motion, with metallic specks occasionally adhering to its surface. The ceiling of the exhibition space has been exposed and its glass panels removed, allowing natural light to enter.

In the back of the room, old advertising banners from previous Secession exhibitions are scattered across the last section of the exhibition. Fragments of words covered with brass foil can be seen on their surfaces, alongside markings and patterns covered with lead-containing solder. Echoing Gustav Klimt's Beethoven Frieze, the works bring an ornamental language into contact with industrial heat, toxicity, and traces of material deposits. Lead, contained in solder, is today associated with pollution and health damage, although it was once widely used in architecture, crafts, cosmetics, and ornamentation, valued as much for its malleability and luster as for its utility. Its shimmer here appears less magnificent than melancholic: a material glow that can hardly be desired anymore.

The etymology and cultural history of the term “melancholy” direct this material gloom inward, towards the body itself. The word derives from the ancient Greek “melas” (black) and “choli” (bile), referring to the origin of teachings about the body. It was believed that black bile originated from the spleen and, in excess, caused deep sadness and grief. An imbalance between the four humors – blood, yellow bile, phlegm, and black bile – meant that the human body was failing and in decay: both physically and spiritually.

Mire Lee's works behave like dysfunctional hybrid creatures, trapped in relentless cycles of production and exhaustion. Here, the artist's machinery performs another turn on its own axis: it occupies the center of the room, responding to the building's architecture while simultaneously splitting the space apart. Gradually, an environment of excess, dirt, and convulsive twitching spreads.