THE TOURIST

Gifts, Conversations and Space: An Interview (1)

Rhana Devenport: I’d like to speak with you about your practice in relation to certain ideas that may frame our conversation – the first could be described as filters of living, the second as gestures of expression, and the third, intimacy and release.

In relation to the idea of filters of living, I am interested in how you’ve come to your practice today – you’ve studied violin for twelve years, science, textiles and architecture. How have these disciplines informed and filtered into your thinking and realisation about your own need to be an artist?

Lee Mingwei: I know in my artistic process there are several elements that are quite prominent. One is the psychological component of it and this goes back to my practice of biology. When I was in University in Washington I was a biology major, and took extra psychology and anthropology classes. I already had an interest in how people think and feel and relate to each other, and after four years I decided science was a little too accurate for me. I preferred more fluidity. Instead of declaring to my parents my interest in studying art, I said I wanted to do architecture. This was rather a happy accident because the discipline within architecture about spatial rather than graphic concerns and the interactions of people within space is very important for me. There is an architectonic element in all my installations. When I was studying architecture at California College of Art and Craft I was double-majoring in textiles because, again, I felt architecture was too precise. I also did not really enjoy the sort of machismo and ego within architecture. Textiles, particularly weaving, gave me a very different sense of structure within two dimensions. The way I look at it, my work is conceptually concerned with the weaving together of people. Instead of the warp and weft, it is human memories, histories and dreams that form the fabric. After I realised I wanted more than the certainty that the textile form could offer, I studied new genre public art, which at the time involved a blurring of art and life, as well as an investigation of human relationships and ideas about daily rituals.

RD: You then did your Masters at Yale in 1995 and 1997.

LM: I had two years of discussions with some of the most amazing artists and thinkers of the time. For me now, the most important thing is human relationships and what that means with the person I’m collaborating with, either a curator or institution or the fabricator or the designer.

RD: You’ve often mentioned your six summers in the Buddhist monastery. Can you speak about what modes of enquiry these summers instilled in you?

LM: My parents were politically involved, not in a frontline way but they had that Taiwanese independent streak. They asked me what I wanted to do during our long summers. From a young age I was intrigued with religious spaces. At that time my father had a patient who was a prominent Ch’an Buddhist monk, and my father suggested I live with him during summer. So one day he left me in a hut at the base of a mountain for the summer.

RD: How old were you?

LM: I was six. And I saw this little lantern walking down from the path getting closer and closer and when he reached me, the sun came up. He had a very beautiful white robe and shoes for me to wear. We then ascended to the temple, a compound of four wooden buildings, each building had a monk with an apprentice and I became his apprentice. It was a communal life, and we didn’t speak often. That’s when I realised the power of silence. This was a little hard at first given I was deeply into Charlie’s Angels and American culture at the time! There was no electricity, we awoke at three to meditate. He taught Tang Dynasty poetry and associated painting. Chinese poetry and literature, especially with that of Tang and Song era, is not about realism, not about being precise – it’s about suggestion. This is when he introduced the concept of abstraction to me. He also taught me calligraphy. Looking back, he was teaching me the very essence of any great religion – in this instance Buddhism – respect, sharing and generosity, because he was extremely generous with his knowledge and he was a very warm person. I had a very life-altering experience there. One day he sat me down and said, ‘Mingwei, can you tell me what an apple is?’ I said, ‘Oh sure’ in my confident way. And then he said, ‘Tell me about an apple for an hour’. I began but after a few minutes, I ran out of words and for the next 50 minutes we sat in silence. I was embarrassed, waiting.

RD: Did you feel you had somehow failed?

LM: Yes, exactly. Then, from underneath this robe, he gave me this beautiful apple and said, ‘This is what an apple is. Have it’. And I took a bite and I realised that it really was what an apple is. It was amazing, that experience of teaching me that words can sometimes be insufficient or inefficient.

So these experiences over the summers influenced my artwork greatly, but in subtle not necessarily overt ways. When people say that there is a Buddhist aesthetic in my work, I disagree, as every great religion possesses those elements. And while the physical aesthetic of my work definitely has the simplicity of Ch’an Buddhism, I also love Scandinavian design simplicity as well Song Dynasty design, the minimal and the scholarly.

RD: Yes, I understand that Ch'an is a way of looking, a direct pointing, a way to focus attention on the truth of one’s own life.

I would like to ask you now about your gestures of expression. You have talked about your practice in terms of gifting, the gift. How did this idea become clear for you and how does it manifest in your practice?

LM: I grew up in a household that’s very much about gift giving. The wrapping of gifts is a considered process. All my projects are participatory-type projects, and I realised that in a way I’m depending on the generosity of the participants. Gifting is part of the process in both directions. I have always been surprised by the generosity of the people giving me these things. I’m very, very grateful for that.

RD: Conversation often underpins many of your projects, as in The Tourist Project that you first presented in Houston in 2002 and then at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2003. How did you move towards the unpredictability of a conversational space and how might this lead you to unexpected, somewhat undetermined places?

LM: With most of my projects I build, I create a ‘rule of the game’. But in a very fluid sense, because I dislike projects that are too prescriptive. In my projects I invite people to participate in person. Hopefully one might feel this is interesting and intriguing enough to undertake the project with me. Hopefully I leave enough space for people to create their own ‘rules of the game’. Conversation definitely is a point of departure because through verbal, physical and psychological communication so many other things can happen. This is when my project really touches upon the essence of the Ch’an idea, which is about what’s happening at a particular moment – and from this moment, one chooses one’s next step.

RD: You’ve also incorporated cooking as a way of negotiating with people – for example, The Dining Project that you undertook in your first solo show at the Whitney in 1998. How does the act of cooking for others link back to the idea of the gift?

LM: Cooking definitely goes back to the issue of gift giving and for me this is part of the gift-giving ritual in my artistic practice. But I also think it’s quite a selfish act because it’s tremendously satisfying for me to cook for people. The Dining Project is in the same category of my work as The Sleeping Project and The Tourist Project. They are all one-on-one projects.

There are other types of projects where I create a stage for people to have experiences without me being personally involved.

RD: Like Writing the Unspoken that you produced for the 1999 Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at the Queensland Art Gallery?

LM: Exactly.

RD: Finally, I would like to ask you about intimacy and release. Can you explain why this intimate and unpredictable connection with other individuals is so compelling for you as an artist?

LM: The intimate and unpredictable relationship process with another person, especially a stranger, always intrigues me. People come with their own personal history, therefore we collaborate with that and hopefully create something – a unique conversation or something further. Also, harnessing my naivety about their life, hopefully something new is discovered in their own life.

RD: Very different sets of parameters open out when you know nothing about a person you interact with.

LM: Yes, I think it’s easier for people to be very intimate verbally and psychologically with a stranger. Because you know that time is limited.

RD: Is the idea of chance important here?

LM: Lottery definitely plays into this whole notion of fate, chance and unpredictability – and, hopefully, through a kind of alchemy, one can create something extraordinary. This gives me my emphasis, my inspiration and my energy to continue doing these kinds of projects. But they can be overwhelming. It’s like a knife with two blades – I have to be very careful about that.

RD: I’m interested in the process of transposition that occurs when these intimate acts or conversations of disclosure within a certain timeframe take place and are then relocated, presented as material evidence of this personal exchange. This seems to become a kind of archaeology of the artwork that is re-positioned within a museum or a public space. Obviously you enjoy working within public places. You seem to consider the display of what can be very tender material very carefully and differently within each project. It’s like you’re creating a frame of presentation, that’s unique to that particular locale and the integrity of the work. This process of displacing material from the very personal domain into the public domain seems to be a central factor in your way of working. To me the way that you integrate evidence of the process into the materiality of your projects results neither in detritus nor dispassionate documentation.

LM: I always have issues about presenting the materials of these projects and I’m still fighting with that. It’s a battle for me, how to work with evidence but still keep the actions and integrity of the work, the conceptual part of the work.

RD: So what do you think about the power of objects that continue to speak to audiences long after your collaborators and yourself have departed the space?

LM: There are different levels of participation. For example, with the one-on-one, these people really own the work in a way. And then there’s another level, what is offered to people who come and see the objects – this is the stage, the vessel. Then there are texts and my own storytelling about the work and the process. Yet the objects do possess power.

RD: Do you see the participants in works such as The Tourist Project, who share the stories of their own world with you, as fellow artists, collaborators, partners or actually the flesh of the work?

LM: All of these. They are an essential part of the artwork. They are the creators of the artwork with me, and they are truly the owners of the artwork.

(1) This interview took place on 8 and 9 March 2005.

Rhana Devenport is Director of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand