The September issue of frieze magazine is dedicated to artists and writers working and living in East Asia. Andy St. Louis profiles artist Lee Bul on the eve of her major survey at Seoul’s Leeum Museum of Art. Plus, Ela Bittencourt, Fernanda Brenner, Raphael Fonseca and Yina Jiménez Suriel contribute to a dossier on four emerging artists to watch at this year’s São Paulo Biennial.

Profile: Lee Bul

‘I’m not a nihilist, but I’m interested in how many times we fail, how many times we go through this whole process.’ The artist reflects on a career shaped by fractured utopias, existential absurdity and the architectural language of desire and disillusionment.

Dossier: 4 Artists to Watch: São Paulo Biennial 

‘Being human is a constant training that is exercised. There is not a given but a learned humanity.’ Shaped by migration and memory, Forugh Farrokhzad, Berenice Olmedo, Gervane de Paula and Pol Taburet stand out for the ways they reimagine relation, resistance and the poetics of belonging.

Also featuring  

David Grubbs interviews Stephen Prina on his referential practice in anticipation of his in-depth survey at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Paul Chan pens a thematic essay on the psychoanalytic implications of conjuring his AI alter ego, Paul’. In ‘1,500 Words’, Eric Otieno Sumba and Can Sungu write about organizing ‘Destination: Tashkent’ (2024), a film festival, public programme and publication project that celebrated and critically examined the legacies of the Tashkent Festival of Asian, African and  Latin American Cinema.

Columns: Music

Johanna Hedva examines the cosmological rhythms that undergird their astrology readings; McKenzie Wark defends the DJ as artist; Jennie C. Jones speaks to Lauren Rosati about combining music and colour in her sculptures; Simon Wu profiles punk rock group Emily’s Sassy Lime; Juliet Jacques speaks to Helen Cammock about the depiction of global colonial violence in her music-inflected films.

Finally, Megan Nolan responds to Louise Bourgeois’s 2007 etching I Love You. Plus, Jennie C. Jones contributes to our series of artists’ ‘to-do’ lists, and associate editor Sean Burns pens a postcard from Tokyo.