An interview with Lee Mingwei

Lee Mingwei designs experiential spaces in the museum in which the human encounter is central. He asks people to bring their favorite things to the museum and to share the stories behind them, he invites visitors to mend clothes with him, or spend a night with him in the museum. What inspires him is the unpredictable moment of encounter, of exchange, giving, and the ritual deepening of everyday situations. We spoke to the artist, who recently had an exhibition at Berlin's Gropius Bau designed under exceptional conditions.

evolve: Your art does question what art is – you create experiences where people can meet each other. How did you come to this?

Lee Mingwei: I think all my artwork has a lot to do with where I came from and my childhood experience in Taiwan. The city of Taipei in the 60 and 70s was so relatively intimate in the sense that people still had a lot of relationships with each other by having breakfast together and talking. I received information about where I am and who I am by talking to other people, so I became an integral part of society. Therefore, looking into my artwork in groups I am asking people for example in a project called “The Living Room” to bring things that are important to them into the museum and to share the stories behind each of these personal objects. So, all my work is very much about using these situations I have created for each visitor and using that as a stepping stone to explore who you are and the people you meet and therefore continue the relationship.

Faith and Chance

e: It seems that your projects have a lot to do with change or an unpredictable process. Is that a conscious choice to allow this unpredictability?

LM: I think faith and chance are the main ingredients of my work, which allow for a certain tension. This has to do with two elements in my life. First, as a Taiwanese person, I grew up with an idea based on the altering theme of the I Ching, the book of change, which is Tao in practice. For example, today I have the pleasure and honor to meet you, which is influenced by thousands of years of development. Maybe, in a previous life, we have been inclined to this particular meeting and now it is the perfect timing. In that way, each new encounter is a way to help us move forward as human beings.

The second element is when I came to the West in the '80, I encountered the work of John Cage who talks a lot about faith and chance. When chance happens in my artwork, because of the stage I have created, it brings certain elements into it, with hope for what it will bring. So, it is not a completely random chance.

e: And this allows for a kind of creativity or a kind of emergence that you cannot 'think up' before.

LM: Yes. I personally think I am not a very creative person and when I open up to chance and for people to bring in their own element and story by trusting me, it becomes a much richer experience. You could almost see it as a tango, a dance between two people who are strangers. When this person steps forward, the person in front of this person steps backward to allow that space and the other way around. This movement is quite beautiful without knowing what the next three steps are.

e: And the dance then in each work has a different kind of quality or content or space of the experience that you want to create.

LM: Each project has its unique essence and the underlying energy that brings them all together like a necklace, is the idea of generosity and kindness. In this way, you can see the projects as little pieces of an emerald. They are similar in the sense that we are all human beings, we are all vulnerable, and still, we are strong enough to share kindness with strangers.

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Like a Mirror

e: It seems that in this sharing of kindness, there is also room for reconciliation and healing, a different way of being with each other, for example in your work “Guernica in Sand”. In this work, you created the famous painting by Picasso in sand and then swept the sand away in a performance.

LM: I know many people, including my parents who see that my work has a healing property to it, but I try not to see it that way. Because, if I think that I am the creator of this work which will heal you, I am assuming you are broken. This is definitely not the position that I want to put you or my visitors in. For example, when people experience “Guernica in Sand”, and the performance with it, it is possible that somebody is caught by a strong emotion. Maybe for this person, this piece is bringing some trauma but maybe he or she was just so moved by the pure physicality and transformation of this work. I believe that my works are literally mirrors that reflect the interior of each person. No one sees the same thing and if healing happens or not it is really up to the person.

MY WORKS ARE LITERALLY MIRRORS THAT REFLECT THE INTERIOR OF EACH PERSON.

e: In some works, like “The Mending Project” you also made this process of reparation very concrete by repairing together with people pieces of cloth that need to be fixed. Is that the interest in this process of repairing something that is broken?

LM: The origination of this project comes from the very traumatic event on 9/11/2001 in New York when the airplanes hit the World Trade Center. My partner was in the towers at that time and for some hours I did not know if he was still alive. I went home and took out all the socks and shirts that needed to be mended and repaired, which we never had the time to do. After 6 hours I heard the lock turn, he opened the door and was standing there covered in ash and blood and there were 6 strangers behind him, also covered in dust.

After 9 years I created The Mending Project out of that experience. But my artwork is not a place to share my traumatic history. I don’t want people’s present experiences to be influenced by such a horrible event. Often people would come and say, “Oh, are you repairing something free for us, can you add something beautiful to it?”. And I answer, “We'll do it together” which is a very beautiful experience. Then sometimes people ask, just like you, where did this project come from? Then I feel it is right to share that story verbally, like an oral history with a person. People often think this work is about the exploitation of Asian clothes manufacturers in Bangladesh or Pakistan. When I had two projects at the same time at the Venice Biennale, an English friend of mine did the mending with the people for me and this association never came up. So, my art is like a mirror and a flexible work.

e: In a very courageous project, “The Sleeping Project”, you spend a night in the museum with a stranger. Here a very intimate room for meeting each other seems to be the main process of the work. Why are you drawn to creating this kind of intimate space with or between strangers?

SOMETIMES WE USE OUR CULTURE AS A FRONT OF EXCUSING OUR IGNORANCE AND SELFISHNESS.

LM: The origin of this work comes from an encounter in my youth when I was riding the night train to Prague. I shared the coach with an elderly gentleman who survived the concentration camp and lost all of his family there. We talked the whole night about his life experience. “The Sleeping Project” reveres this kind of chance meeting, that can suddenly open up a whole new relationship. The challenge in my artwork is to create a stage of intimacy and trust between two strangers, but without being sexual or having sexual tension, in the darkness of the night. We share very personal stories with each other and still have the generosity and kindness of saying, “Good morning, how are you, how did you sleep?” to each other the next morning. It has been the most difficult project for me to do. A stranger and I are testing each other in a courteous way of finding out in what depth of our conversation to go into and often it goes into a very profound and deeply personal story within just 20-30 minutes. I think this is mainly because we never met each other and we probably won't see each other again. The truly challenging intimate moment arrives before we go to our own beds. For example, I go to the bathroom, come out in my pajamas and go into my own bed saying 'good night' or 'have a lovely dream'. These very delicate movements are leading to something even more intimate in the complete darkness of the night, without being sexual.

Give and Take

e: In some of your work this encounter takes the form of giving and receiving of a gift, like in “Sonic Blossom” where someone is giving a song, or in the “Nu Wa Project” someone is called to let something go, give it away. What is your interest in these processes of gifting or this kind of exchange?

LM: In Taiwanese society, a gift is a very powerful element within the cohesiveness of the society. In my work, I feel like we all are givers of gifts and also receivers of gifts and it often happens simultaneously. For example, in “Sonic Blossom” where the singer is giving the gift to the receiver by singing Schubert's song and within the first two phrases the receivers are often in tears. Then the singers sometimes will not be able to continue singing, because they are so emotionally affected by seeing how their gift has been returned to them. There is this extremely powerful and delicate exchange of gifts between these two people. So, in some ways, there is no power structure in “Sonic Blossom” because both are giver and receiver at the same time.

e: In some artworks the people who buy the work, are asked to give part of it away. Why do you include this process in some works?

LM: Yes, in a project called “Stone Journey,” I created bronze reproductions from the original stones, and the original and the reproduction are the work with the remark that I ask the person who has this pair to toss one away, either the artificial one or the natural one, no matter where and when. This is a kind of homework, but it is really not my place to demand, because the person will know the moment when it arrives. As long as they haven't tossed one away, the work isn’t physically performed, they still have their homework by going back and forth between two decisions. It is very similar to the Zen Buddhist practice of Koan where the teacher gives a question to a student who goes back to the teacher with the answer the next day. Often the teacher without knowing what the answer will be, intuitively knows if that is the right answer. That is quite bizarre, because if you do not know what the answer is, how do you know if it is right or wrong? But intuitively and instinctively the teacher knows if that is the right answer.

e: Do you think we need to re-establish these rituals of giving and receiving?

LM: In older societies, like European and Asian Societies, we all have these rituals of sleeping, eating, singing and dancing, giving gifts. But these rituals are not taught in schools or in institutions, we learn them through our family and through daily activities. We all know how to be generous and to prepare a simple meal for a friend, or a cup of tea or coffee. I think we have not forgotten about them at all, it is just that sometimes we think, everything is becoming so superficial and it's about computers. But rituals are everywhere if you look closely. Hopefully, my work can let you know, 'don't worry, they're there, you just have to pay a little bit more attention and you'll find them everywhere”.

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Omnipresent Ritual

e: How do you see the kind of meeting or dialogue between East and West? You're also in some way, bringing eastern life or tradition to a western context or art context. How do you experience that kind of dialogue in your work?

LM: I was in Taiwan until 13 or 14 and Taiwan at that time was quite Westernized. Then I lived in America for a long time between 13 to 52 or 53, I considered myself more American than Taiwanese. However, after living in Paris for about two or three weeks, I felt so much at home because I could understand how people think and act. I emotionally felt like I was in Asia, back in the old civilization and culture. I think the idea of culture and history is quite similar in Europe and Asia in the sense that we all had very complex and beautiful histories for thousands of years. In America, the history is relatively young, besides the indigenous history. Therefore, I really don't think there is that big of a difference between East and West. It is a construct that is relatively simple and easy for people to place their unfortunate misunderstanding and prejudice against each other without realizing that we are doing certain things because we are selfish as human beings. Sometimes we use our culture as a front of excusing our ignorance and selfishness. One of the reasons why I wanted to share this idea of ritual is because I really see that it is also very much embedded in the European tradition. Superficially we might look different but deep down we're the same people, we are very similar.

I hope the understanding of my work comes from the emotional component of who you are rather than the intellectual component.

When I came to the West and encountered John Cage, Joseph Beuys, and Marina Abramović, I had an immediate affiliation with their work. But although they are powerful and inspiring, I felt something very cold and sharp, a sense of bitter taste about their work. I wanted to take the bitterness away by adding my own tradition, Zen Buddhist practice, Confucianism, Taoism, or even Shintoism, so it has more elements of nature and of a ‘curved‘ emotion that is gentler and less critical and sharp.

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Danger and Opportunity

e: In the exhibition in Berlin, many of your projects were limited, because of the Corona regulations. How was it for you to also do an exhibition in the time of corona and with these challenges in our society?

LM: In traditional Taiwanese, the word for crisis (危機)[M1]  is composed of two characters Wei and Ji. Wei means danger and Ji means opportunity. The corona crisis for me is a beautiful experience despite the very heart-wrenching suffering because it allows me a break from my usual comfort and create a schism in my world so that I was able to look into my own practice and how this kind of practice relates to what is happening in this moment.

Consequently, I was able to create an online project called “Having tea with Lee Mingwei” where I met with a person through lottery on Zoom, after I send them a cake recipe to prepare if possible, and had a very intimate conversation over tea and cake. So yes, it is a beautiful experience in that way however it is also a very painful experience because I lost my own mother-in-law and also some dear friends in this pandemic.

When the exhibition in Berlin opened on May 11 after the lockdown, people were spending a lot more time in the show compared to normal. And visitors were telling the guards that they feel it was sort of a highlight to see all these intimate projects at a time when we are called to distance ourselves physically. The exhibition arrived at a bad, but perfect time.

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