Lee has steered Seoul- and Busan-based Kukje Gallery for 43 years now. For a long time, hers was an import business, introducing the likes of Bill Viola and Louise Bourgeois to a South Korean audience. She still shows them (with exhibitions in January and September respectively) and exhibited Gala Porras-Kim for the first time in September, but with international dealers – and collectors – flocking to Seoul, Lee says she is refocusing. ‘The need to heavily promote foreign artists as we once did has diminished,’ she told The Korea Times. Consequently, the 2025 programme was packed with the likes of Yeondoo Jung, Ahn Kyuchul and a group show of young Korean painters. Not that Lee has ever neglected the domestic scene: she was instrumental in introducing Dansaekhwa globally and she also hung the monochrome paintings of key figure Ha Chong-Hyun in the gallery this year.