Table Of ContentWhitney Museum of American Art
At the core of Lee Mingwei's art lies a series of interact
NS
THE ARTIST, THE PARTICIPANT, AND THE SPECTATOR. ALTHOUGH
SAC-i
THE PUBLIC SPACE OF A MUSEUM, THESE EXCHANGES AND THEIR EF
C"
NOT BE IMMEDIATELY APPARENT.
The Dining Project, for example, begins to three positions of meditation in Inspired by Buddhist ritual and lan-
with an encounter that takes place in Ch'an Buddhism: standing, sitting, and guage, Lee regards The Dining Project
this gallery after the Museum has kneeling. While one booth offers a and The Letter-Writing Project as "way
closed to the public. Several times a seated position, and the other a kneel- stations," places of rest and renewal
week, Lee carefully prepares an Asian ing position, we are free to write let- along the path traveled by us all.
meal in the staff kitchen and shares it ters of any kind in either one. Letters
Born in 1964, Lee
ge
with a different guest. Food serves as a and addressed envelopes can be clipped
catalyst for acquaintance and conver- inside the booth for others to read, or Taipei . As a child :
sation. The ongoing dialogue of the they can first be inserted in an enve- the kitchen, sampl1i
two diners is recorded as they sit across lope and sealed. The shadowy silhou- their formal prese
from one another at a low table. The ette ofthe writer surrounded by letters
following day, the audio recording is will be visible through the translucent
played in the gallery, slightly altered glass panels of the booths. Addressed
and barely audible. This aural trace letters are collected and mailed weekly,
allows us to experience the meal, sec- while those to the deceased are burned
ondhand, while maintaining the guest's by the artist.
anonymity.
By aestheticizing familiar rituals, The
The Letter-Writing Project takes place Dining Project and The Letter-Writing
when the Museum is open. Inside free- Project heighten our awareness of the
standing booths, we find a supply of potential for change that underlies the
stationery and a private space con- activities of our everyday lives.
ducive to reflection and contemplation.
Lee invites us to write letters to people
both living and dead, "the letters we
have always intended to write but have
put off with excuses." He asks that we
reflect on three things: gratitude, an
event for which we feel grateful;
insight, an event that has led to an
important realization; and forgiveness,
an event for which we would ask or
offer forgiveness. Gratitude, insight,
and forgiveness correspond respectively
View of The Dining Project, 1997
Wood, audiotape players, beans, rice, and tatami mats, 24 x 132 x 132 in. (61 x 33
Lombard-Freid Fine Arts, New York
MoneyforArt, 1997 (detail)
Wood shelving, origami sculptures from U.S. currency, traded objects,
59 x 58 x 5 in. (149.9 x 147.3 x 12.7 cm) each shelving unit
Lombard-Freid Fine Arts, New York
NS AMONG
>GED IN
r CTS MAY
In a different vein, 100 Days with Lily
(1995) documents Lee's relationship
with a flower he planted as a bulb, nur-
tured to maturity, and carried every-
where, even after the flower died. Text
W UP IN THE TOWN OF TAICHUNG NEAR
overlaid onto five photographs that
SPENT MUCH OF HIS FREE TIME AT HOME IN
show various stages of Lily's life chron-
DISHES PREPARED BY THE CHEF PRIOR TO icles moments of their shared daily
5
kTION AT A FAMILY MEAL. activities: day 1, 10:23, planting Lily;
day 2, 06:34, sleeping with Lily; day 3,
At the age of eight, he began to prac- ofthe piece appealed to Lee, as did the 12:05, eating with Lily; day 4, 09:14,
tice Ch'an Buddhism by spending sum- model of Thompson, an artist who walking with Lily; day 5, 07:12, medi-
mers at a monastery, where he lived worked with natural cycles and social tating with Lily. Lily died on day 79 and
with his master, tended the grounds, systems. was exhumed on day 100. The reverence
and learned through daily activities. for natural cycles and everyday life is
Lee attended high school in northern Lee's earliest interactive pieces, pro- similar in spirit to Thompson's piece
California at a boarding school run by duced shortly after he left CCAC, took involving bees.
Benedictine monks. Following gradua- the form of photographs. MoneyforArt
tion, he studied at several colleges on (1994) documents the fate of nine At Yale University, where Lee enrolled
the West Coast, receiving a BFA from small sculptures, serpentine forms he for graduate studies, his interactive
California College of Arts and Crafts made by folding ten-dollar bills. Lee pieces took on architectural dimen-
(CCAC) with honors in textile design. made the sculptures at a cafe, where sions. For his thesis show, he created
There, his course of study included a his activity attracted responses from Reflections (1997), a freestanding
class on criticalissues in sculpture with passersby. In exchange for receiving a chamber of muslin, divided into com-
Mark Thompson, an artist and breeder sculpture, some of these individuals partments by a floor-to-ceiling two-way
of bees. Lee admired Thompson's ap- agreed to stay in touch with the artist mirror set in the middle. Two partici-
proach to artmaking, an approach simi- for a year. Those who received sculp- pants completed the work. As they sat
larto that of Ch'an Buddhism in making tures included Tony, programmer; Kan, on either side of the mirror, each saw
no distinction between art and life. He student; Sophia, housewife; John, his or her reflection gradually merge
recalls helping Thompson install a piece homeless; and Jennifer, waitress. After with the face of the other person. The
for an exhibition that included a func- six months, two ofthe participants had silhouettes ofthe participants could be
tioning beehive set in the rib cage of transformed the art into money. Lee seen by visitors through the translucent
an ox skeleton. The bees were sealed in photographed the purchases made with muslin walls.
a chamber that had a tube opening the ten-dollar bills. At the end of the
onto a field offlowers; they flew outto year, five sculptures remained, one had The Dining Project originated during
pollinate by day and returned to the been stolen, and three had been Lee's firstyear atYale. He set up a rudi-
hive at night throughout the duration exchanged for goods. mentary platform in his studio, where
of the exhibition. The temporal aspect he dined, one-on-one, with over thirty
f: 335.3 cm)
MoneyforArtU2, U3, US, 1994 100 Days with Lily#1 -US, 1995
Silver dye bleach prints (Ilfochrome), 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6 cm) each Silver dye bleach prints (Ilfochrorr
Lombard-Freid Fine Arts, New York Lombard-Freid Fine Arts, New York
On January 1, 1994 nine sculptures were given to:
ners so that conversations could be
played back the following day. At this
time, Lee revised MoneyforArt, giving
it sculptural form: he made origami
sculptures from dollar bills and placed
them on the shelves of modular wall
units. Visitors to the gallery could take
one of the origami pieces in exchange
for a personal effect and a card stating
the person's name and profession. For
example, the artist Byron Kim left
a small piece of hardware, stating
his profession as "handyman." Since
galleries are places where money is
regularly exchanged for art, this piece
had a particular resonance. As with the
first photographic version, we are asked
—
to consider what constitutes art the
sculpture, the everyday object(s) left in
exchange for the sculpture, or the act
of exchange itself.
The Dining Project and The Letter-
STOLEN Writing Project look back to process-
oriented art of the early 1970s when
real-life situations and social institu-
—
tions and systems including meals
—
individuals who responded to a flyer he Last year, as part of the one-artist and dining and the postal system
had posted around campus. The flyer exhibition "InteractExchange," The became the raw material for art. One of
sought "participants for project dealing Dining Projectwas restaged at Lombard- the best-known examples of dining as
with journal-keeping and self-disclo- Freid Fine Arts, where Lee cooked and an art form is the cooperative restau-
sure. Participants must enjoy intro- served dinner after the gallery had rant Food, spawned in 1971 on the
spection, self-disclosing conversation, closed for the day. For the occasion, he corner of Green and Prince Streets in
writing, and the sharing of food." Lee designed and constructed the current New York City, by Gordon Matta-Clark,
initially asked each respondent to keep dining platform, a simple and elegant Carol Goodden, Suzanne Harris, and
a diary of thoughts about the dinner, structure more finished than the impro- others. An architectural space altered
but later found that this part of the vised setup in his studio at Yale. In by Matta-Clark's bold cuttings through
project was not entirely successful. addition, he decided to tape the din- the building, Food was also an inex-
i!0 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm) each
Day21 11:04ShoppinguithLily
Day22 10:38GerminationojLi/y^
Day23l47:49TalkingwithLib fjV
Day24 16:29ThinkinguirhLily
Day25 i8:50MasturbatingtvithLily
Day26 21:2SLaughingtvithLily
Day27 18:40Typ^u-irhLily
Huith
Day28 13:21 Lily
Day29 09:40A^BIngu-ithLily
Dayj^R?!:56 "^HguifhLily1
*Day^^k9:43ShoppingtiithLiiy
Day3W09:23Eatingwithfly-
Day34 17:26CookingwithLily
Day35 19:39Masturbatingui
Day36 12:34Earinguith,Liiv
(
Day37 09:i9RidingwithLil
Day38 10:20TalkingwithLily
Day39 'l'Jftf>*'"g"ithLilv
D«> 40 13:41EatinguithLily
pensive place for artists to eat, a com- ously to visitors. The remaining plates, Museums have long been regarded as
munity watering hole, and a source of bottles, chopsticks, and plastic cutlery places where the contemplation of
jobs for artists. It was a restaurant, per- composed an ever-growing installation. beautiful paintings or sublime sculp-
formance space, and work ofartin one. Although Lee studied with Taravanija at tures can lead to a transcendent expe-
Yale, the intimacy of his one-on-one rience. In this sense, modern museums
The postal service was another system dinners, which are inaccessible to have been likened to cathedrals
employed by many artists in the 1970s. gallery visitors, is quite distinct from devoted to the new religion of art. It is
One of the best-known proponents of Tiravanija's feeding of the masses dur- appropriate then that Lee's art, with its
mail art was Ray Johnson. An exhibi- ing gallery hours. In some cases Tira- strong spiritual component, should
tion at the Whitney Museum in 1970 vanija had left by the time gallery-goers be presented in a museum context. Its
entitled "The New York Correspondence came to eat. Dining with Lee is a more path to transcendence comes not from
School ofArt" was composed ofephem- personal experience that necessitates a the contemplation of objects, but from
era mailed to the Museum by Johnson's degree of mutual trust on the part of the consideration of everyday interac-
correspondents. In the same year, Vito host and guest. In a similar fashion, tions. Learning from The Dining Project
Acconci took partin an exhibition enti- The Letter-Writing Project asks partici- and The Letter-Writing Project will
tled "Information" at The Museum of pants to reveal something about them- enable us to find "way stations" in the
Modern Art. His piece consisted of hav- selves. An exchange takes place among humblest activities of our own daily
ing his mail forwarded to the museum, the writer, the recipient, and visitors, lives.
where he would go to pick it up. who are given the opportunity to read
Eugenie Tsai
some ofthe letters priorto their mailing.
For Lee, however, the focus is less Associate Curator
aboutthe networks themselves and the The Dining Project and The Letter-
communities of artists that form as a Writing Project are part ofa tradition of
result of them, than about one-on-one Buddhist-inspired American art that
exchange. His Dining Project is some- came into its own during the Beat gen-
times compared to the food perfor- eration and includes a range of artists
mances of Thai-born artist Rirkrit as diverse as Morris Graves, John Cage,
Tiravanija, who began making food art Ad Reinhardt, and Bill Viola. While the
in 1990, when he served pad thai atthe influence of Buddhist thought takes
opening of his first one-artist exhibi- different forms in the work of these
tion in New York. For the duration of artists, in Lee's art it is most visible in
the show, he arranged and rearranged the emphasis on process, on becoming.
the pungent remains from the event in Beautifully designed and crafted struc-
—
the gallery. Two years later, for another tures the dining platform or the
—
show, Tiravanija set up a kitchen in the writing booths play a role, not as
back room of a gallery, where business commodities but as props supporting
dealings usually transpire. He cooked the activities themselves.
Thai curries that were served continu-
View of The Dining Project, 1997
A few years ago, I could never have imagined doing what I do
today, and I know that had it not been forthe help of many peo-
ple I would not be here. They are the links in the chain of my
development, and without any one ofthem that chain would not
bind my present to my past. I thank them all, those who taught
Born in Taiwan, 1964
me through their words, their acts, and their presence: my fam-
California College of Arts & Crafts, Oakland (BFA, 1993)
ily, Gregg Richardson, Andrew Siedlikowski, Mark Thompson, Lia Yale University, New Haven (MFA, 1997)
Cook, John Newman, Ronald Jones, Rachael Berwick, Meyer Lives and works in New York
Vaisman, Roni Horn, Gary Simmons, Donald Moffat, Thelma
One-artist exhibitions
Golden, Michael Smith, Eileen Myles, and Kristin Jones. Thanks
also to Lea Freid and Jane Lombard, who presented my first one- 1993 Isabel Percy West Gallery, California College of
artist show in their gallery. I still marvel at their daring decision Arts & Crafts, Oakland
1997 "InteractExchange , " Lombard- Freid Fine Arts, New York
to show my work, which in turn introduced me to David Ross and
Eugenie Tsai, who took another daring leap in bringing my work Group exhibitions
to the Whitney. I can only conclude that they must have been 1989 At Broadway & Tenth streets, Oakland, California
very impressed with my culinary skills to allow me to cook for 1997 "MFA Exhibitions," Yale University School of Art,
eleven weeks in their museum. Art and Architecture Gallery
"World Views," Deutsche Bank, New York
I often remark how ironic it is that, although I graduated from
a sculpture program, I really do not know how to construct any-
thing. It is the skills and talents of people like Charly Wittock,
Stephan Freid, Eric Sparks, and Jim Conti that have allowed me WoaUcA in tfie &xAiMtio4t
to realize the physical dimension of my projects, without which
height precedes width precedes depth.
my work would be entirely conceptual!
Platform from The Dining Project, 1997
I also want to thank those whom I met in Taipei this past Wood, audiotape players, beans, rice, and tatami mats,
— 24 x 132 x 132 in. (61 x 335.3 x 335.3 CM)
March Chao-yi Tsai, Yung-fen Hu, Pamela Huang, Tina Keng,
— Lombard- Freid Fine Arts, New York
Tim Lin, and Sophie Chang without them I would not have Consultants
:
received the help of Pierre Chen in securing funding from the Charly Wittock, architect
Yageo Corporation. Finally, thanks to Web Master Virgil Wong, Eric R. Sparks, fabricator
who has only begun to teach me the wonders of that new mode
Booths from The Letter-Writing Project, 1998
of communication, the World Wide Web.
Wood and glass, 114 x 67 x 91 in. (289.6 x 170.2 x 231.1 cm)
Lee Mingwei Lombard- Freid Fine Arts, New York
Paper courtesy of Kate's Paperie
Consultants
:
Stephan Freid, architect
Jim Conti, lighting designer
Eric R. Sparks, fabricator
Photograph credits: tPhoto Cristian Alexa, MoneyforArt (detail);
Charly Wittock, View of The Dining Project
Versions of The Dining Project and The Letter-Writing Project are also
available on-line at http://www.paperveins.org/mingwei.
JhiA.eMfobu>^ CORPORATION,TAIWAN, SMEft^lR&S]
uutfi additumat UiftpoAt piom an ano-nynw-uA, donoA. and the, Whitney GontempoAuAieA,.
iPtaiuHUAq,foA The Letter-WritingProjectUpAavuUdfyKate'lPafleAU. ©1998 Whitney Museum of American A
945 Madison Aven
New York, NY 100
