…”Growing up in the Communist North, however, (Seung-taek) Lee had learned to make large-scale sculptures (of Kim Il-sung and Joseph Stalin), and after the Korean War, he fulfilled commissions in the South for very different subjects, including Gen. Douglas MacArthur. He also made portraits for soldiers, and in 1967 found himself on a military base near the DMZ, where he spotted an enormous mass of human hair, shorn from new recruits. [DMZ War: Based on the description, we imagine the hair was from RoK soldiers near the ‘Z.] With permission from the authorities, he rearranged that hair into an astonishing installation, placing it in bags or in rows — an abstract, anonymous group portrait.”
Sadly, the New York Times report does not have a picture of the hair art [paywall may apply].