textiles with lee mingwei
LEE Mingwei; Photo courtesy of Saadiyat Cultural District.
Born in Taiwan in 1964, Lee Mingwei, currently residing in Paris, New York and Taipei, creates participatory installations that enable strangers to engage with concepts of trust, intimacy, and self-awareness. Additionally, Lee conducts one-on-one events in which he and visitors explore these themes through daily activities like eating, sleeping, writing, and conversing. His projects often present open-ended scenarios for everyday interactions, adapting and transforming with participant involvement throughout an exhibition's duration.
Lee received his MFA from Yale University in 1997 and has since showcased his solo exhibitions internationally at venues including the Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern, Gropius Bau, Sydney Modern, Taipei Fine Art Museum, Mori Art Museum, Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, Auckland Art Gallery, Art Museum Ateneum, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. He has also been featured in Biennials in Venice, Lyon, Sharjah, Liverpool, Taipei, Sydney, Echigo-Tsumari, Whitney, and the Asia Pacific Triennials.
His mid-career survey exhibition, "Lee Mingwei and His Relations: The Art of Participation,'' was presented at Mori Art Museum in 2014, traveled to Taipei Fine Arts Museum and Auckland Art Gallery. Lee's European survey, "Lee Mingwei: Li, Gifts, and Rituals," was on view at Gropius Bau in 2020 followed by Museum Villa Stuck. His first US retrospective, "Lee Mingwei: Rituals of Care", opens at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco | de Young in 2024. In the coming years, he plans to unveil his projects and new creations in countries including Hong Kong, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, and the United States.
LUCIJA ŠUTEJ: You graduated from California College of Art in Textile - what initiated your interest in cloths?
LEE MINGWEI: I have loved textiles since childhood. I used to imagine being a fashion designer one day (laugh). I came from a family of doctors, and as the eldest son, I was supposed to carry on the tradition—for a while, I attended medical school, but then I stopped.
I was a weaver for quite a few years and would die the yarn. I was never solely focused on fashion but attracted to the broader notion of textiles - their origins alongside the complex works of weaving and dying. I was intrigued by the story of how textiles become our second skin. Through my research, I learned a great deal about the history of Chinese, Japanese, and Mayan textiles. For me - it became a way to understand societies at different times. Even today, people ask me: Are you still a textile artist? I always say - yes. In a sense I create a social work - a social structure that holds up this ephemeral notion that is called human relationships.
LŠ: Were there specific techniques within textiles that spoke to you?
LM: I was particularly interested in this embroidery style -Kesi（緙絲), seen throughout Imperial China from the 12th to the 14th Century. Although I am from Taiwan, I'm quite interested in Japanese and Chinese history. Actually, I did a project (The Artist Project) with the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where I was asked to select an object in their collection, and I chose three royal robes from this period, which utterly fascinated me. The period is called the Song Dynasty and was the peak of aesthetics in Imperial China with highly diminished colors - celadon blue, celadon green, and very minimalist, unlike the previous Tang Dynasty, which was from the 6th to the 9th Century, very much influenced by Persian as well as Indian culture. Song Dynasty turned the other way and became quiet, refined, and often inspired by nature with motifs such as plum blossoms.
LŠ: What other textile techniques do you admire and why? What about them attracts you?
LM: Another textile technique that I admire is Shibori. It is a Japanese manual tie-dyeing technique that produces patterns on fabric. I enjoyed its handmade quality—you can imagine how much labor and time are required and how much concentration and dedication to make one. Every pattern is unique due to the making, which is also why I love it so much.
LŠ: Do you often engage with fashion history and critique?
LM: Interestingly, I have yet to be reading much about fashion history. The only thing I read rarely, or from time to time, is Vanessa Friedman's New York Times writing about fashion. And to be honest, since graduate school, I haven't been reading art criticism at all (laugh).
LŠ: And are there specific textile artists you admire?
LM: Akira Isogawa, with whom I collaborated on one of my projects called Sonic Blossom. He designed a beautiful gown for the singers when I presented this project in 2019 at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.
LŠ: What draws you towards designing garments? Do you often collaborate on clothing projects? As you just mentioned, you collaborated with Akira Isogawa on the robes for Sonic Blossom's performances.
LM: Yes, in collaboration with Akira Isogawa and Kelima K, we created obis, formal sashes for Japanese women to keep their kimonos together. I've chosen classical, ceremonial, and formal obis, which are the most opulent. They're usually from the 1930s, and we put two obis together to form a new garment. We used origami techniques to create shapes and forms, and subsequently, these costumes became gender-neutral and wearable by both men and women. Performers would wear the robe as a part of the Sonic Blossom work, and what was fascinating to learn from their experience was that they psychologically become demigods. When we performed at the Centre Pompidou, the curators texted me saying the robes needed mending, so they wanted to ask if the singers could wear black shirts instead. I agreed, but later, I learned directly from all the singers that they felt they lacked the power to perform. In a sense, the robes gave them a special identity. It's fascinating to realize that clothing has such power.
LEE Mingwei: Sonic Blossom, 2013-present. Performance view of the exhibition Sonic Blossom, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA. 2015. Singer: GUAN Beibei. Costume: in collaboration with Kelima K; Photo courtesy of LEE Studio, Photo by Anita Kan.
LEE Mingwei: Sonic Blossom, 2013-present. Performance view at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. 2019. Costume: in collaboration with Akira Isogawa. Photo courtesy of Art Gallery of South Australia, Photo by Saul Steed.
LEE Mingwei arranging the costume, in collaboration with Kelima K, at the exhibition Lee Mingwei: Sonic Blossom, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA. 2015; Photo courtesy of LEE Studio.
LŠ: How did you first meet both designers, and what did you learn from working with Akira Isogawa and Kelima K?
LM: I knew of Akira's work when I was working as an artist in different institutions in Australia, and I really admired him. The curator and the director of the Art Gallery of South Australia, asked me to do Sonic Blossom, and I immediately asked if she knew Akira. It turned out he was her best friend (laugh). She made a call, and within 20 minutes, Akira arrived at our dinner saying, “Let's do it together." (laugh)
Whereas, I met Kelima through a dear friend, Pei-Yao Wang, who was the voice coach at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. One day, Pei-Yao was walking in SoHo and passed by a tiny store where she saw an Asian lady making beautiful, unique wedding gowns using Japanese kimono fabric. She introduced herself, and they became good friends. When I was thinking about creating this gown, Kelima was suggested to me as a great partner for the project. We became long-term partners in creating these garments.
I continue to collaborate with them not because of their particular “techniques" but because we share a similar mentality. I feel we both are understood during creation. They visualize my idea and take it to another level. I enjoy working with them—they are beautiful.
LŠ: Do you plan to collaborate further on different projects?
LM: Of course, I have always loved to create my work with other artists. I don't think I'm the most creative person, so I need help from fellow artists, especially wonderful spirits like them. When I see artists such as Akira and Kelima in the process of creating, I'm always moved by what they do. They are open to ideas and humble, “What do you think about this?" That's when true collaboration begins! We take each other's vision of aesthetics and build on it. Ultimately, it truly becomes our shared creation - which I find very rewarding.
LŠ: Your long-term installation, The Mending Project, focuses on sewing and mending. What about these activities did you want to share with the larger public?
LM: There are two essential seeds of that work. One was from my youth in Taiwan in the mid-70s. During summers, I often saw a young woman wearing a red kimono on her bike, sitting under a big banyan tree in front of a temple. She had a sewing kit and a cat with her. I would play with the cat while she mended clothes to make a living for the villagers. It was a beautiful experience that stayed with me.
The second seed was on 9/11 when my husband was in the World Trade Center. Not knowing if he was alive, I went home and started repairing socks and sweaters until I heard him return. He came back covered in blood and ash with six strangers that he had helped escape. These people stayed with us for two weeks because New York was completely shut down. It took me about nine years to have the courage to create The Mending Project. It's not about what happened but how we move forward as a human race, giving gifts to strangers through repair and embellishment. At the Museum now, most people want embellishment because they don't have holes in their clothes. We embellish them and let them take their clothes back. The project is mainly about gift-giving between strangers.
LEE Mingwei: The Mending Project, 2009-present. Installation view of the exhibition Lee Mingwei and His Relations: The Art of Participation, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan. 2015; Photo courtesy of Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
LEE Mingwei: The Mending Project, 2009-present. Detailed view of the exhibition Viva Arte Viva: The 57th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy. 2017; Photo courtesy of LEE Studio, photo by Anpis WANG.
LEE Mingwei: The Mending Project, 2009-present. Detailed view of the exhibition Viva Arte Viva: The 57th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy. 2017. Photo courtesy of LEE Studio, photo by Anpis WANG.
LEE Mingwei: The Mending Project, 2009-present. Mended garments from previous exhibitions;Photo courtesy of LEE Studio.
LEE Mingwei: The Mending Project, 2009-present. Mended garments from previous exhibitions. Photo courtesy of LEE Studio.
LŠ: The long - term work touches upon the complex relationship of care within a society by looking at the connections between body and garment and their role as the conveyors of memories and identities. How has the project evolved? It has taken place across different continents. But more importantly, how were the relationships and memories between objects and humans redefined? This aspect of the project is particularly intriguing and invites reflection.
LM: When The Mending Project began, I asked people to bring something meaningful for me to repair. It gradually became more about embellishing the dress they wore.
To answer your question, I would probably focus on the Fabric of Memory project, where 21 wooden boxes were featured in the exhibition. Inside each box was a textile article donated by the local community, with the story of the material underneath the lid - this comes close to what you're asking about the meaning of an object. A story that stayed with me was when I created the work at Berlin's Gropius Bau. A visitor to the exhibition from Poland lent us a beautiful girl's dress that her great-grandmother made in the 1940s. It was actually made from a mesh material - a parachute. The story of the garment goes back to World War II, when parachutes were falling from the sky, and one that landed in her great-grandmother's garden was attached to a dead German soldier. The great-grandmother buried the soldier but took the parachute and made clothes from it for generations. Each box contains a beautiful textile object, usually handmade by someone with a strong relationship to the giver and receiver. Both stories are there for you to read, exploring the topic of memory.
Young Lee Mingwei with his mother, 1969; Photo courtesy of LEE Studio.
LEE Mingwei: Fabric of Memory, 2006-present. Installation view of the exhibition Lee Mingwei and His Relations: The Art of Participation, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan. 2015; Photo courtesy of Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
LEE Mingwei: Fabric of Memory, 2006-present. Detailed view of the exhibition Lee Mingwei and His Relations: The Art of Participation, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan. 2015; Photo courtesy of Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
LEE Mingwei: Fabric of Memory, 2006-present. Detailed view of the exhibition Lee Mingwei: Li, Gifts and Rituals, Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany. 2020. Photo courtesy of Gropius Bau, photo by Laura Fiorio.
LŠ: How has The Mending Project influenced your subsequent works?
LM: The Mending Project has taught me that we have beautiful personal stories we often don't share because there's no opportunity or the moment isn't right. A stranger performs an intimate gesture for you through repair and mending, usually done by family members. This acts also inspires the other person to give back by sharing beautiful stories. Recently, at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, an African American gentleman came in wearing a beautifully tailored suit. When I offered to embellish his handkerchief, he shared his story of leaving a career in law to become a fashion designer after a cancer diagnosis. It was a small gesture of repair, but it prompted him to share such a beautiful story.