Meehye Lee: I Do What You Do What They Do at Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig

July 10, 2022

Meehye Lee, National-d, 2022.

July 16–October 31, 2022

Opening:: July 15, 7pm

Artist talk with Meehye Lee: July 16, 2pm

Social media has a significant impact on how we live and behave every day. Posts and feeds provide a continual stream of (self-)representations while continuously delivering news. There is a significant struggle for attention, as well as an increasing need to keep up with others and a fear of missing out (FOMO).

Since the 2010s, Meehye Lee, a South Korean researcher, has been examining how social media affects communication and consumer culture. She gathers and organizes image posts and visualizes how social media trends spread typical behavior. Lee’s work shows that a location’s popularity is more dependent on the photographs shot there than on its originality or past. With the selfie serving as proof of the “ideal existence,” locations with cool selfie backdrops quickly become “must-visit places.”

In the GfZK building, Lee has recreated a popular South Korean selfie location for her new production National-d. She issues guests with “Ten Rules for Your Best Pic” and urges them to snap a picture of themselves in this made-up setting. Thus, Lee addresses the challenge of wanting to be a part of a particular society or group while maintaining one’s own uniqueness. Her latest work poses the following queries: How far will I go to look attractive in pictures on social media? What elements of the staged photos posted on social media are real? Above all all, can I ever truly be free from the urge to imitate other people and you?

Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig
Karl-Tauchnitz-Straße 9-11
04107 Leipzig
Germany
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Saturday–Sunday 12–6pm

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