She may be Asia's leading female artist, but Lee Bul has grown very tired of that title.

Starting out in the late 1980s, Korean artist Lee has witnessed some big changes within the global art scene. She was one of the first women artists from Asia to exhibit in major international art museums during the Asian art boom of the '90s — a time when many Asian art biennales were being launched, and exhibitions focusing on Asian artists were still quite rare in Western art museums.

"In the 1990s, the label 'Asian Woman Artist' was a term that caused me a lot of grief, actually," says Lee at an interview during her recent visit to Tokyo for an artist talk.