Lee Mingwei

Born 1964, Taiwan.

Lives and works in New York City and Berkeley, CA, USA

Many of us will have experienced, at some point in our lives, the powerful rush of memory and emotion conjured by opening a drawer, cupboard or closet and finding a piece of clothing that holds deep meaning for us – a scarf that we wore as a child, a comfort blanket, a shawl that retains our mother’s perfume. Whole stories – family histories, important parts of our identity – can be bound up in these fragments of cloth, almost literally woven into their fabric. Lee Mingwei has invited Liverpool residents to recall the stories and memories bound up for them with handmade textiles and clothing. He offers us the opportunity to share in these memories, and to explore our own physical and emotional responses to the textiles and their histories.

A browse-able database has been developed online as a partner project to the gallery work at Tate Liverpool. The site allows online users to submit details about their home-made items and the memories they evoke. The database will continue to grow throughout the exhibition and submissions are warmly welcomed. To view the project go to http://www.fabricofmemory.co.uk/.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2006 Bodhi Project, Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
Guernica in Sand, Albion Gallery, London, UK

2005 Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, Cologne, Germany

2004 Through Masters’ Eyes, Los Angeles County Museum of Arts, Los Angeles, USA
Shueito Legends, Bunker Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan

2003 The Tourist, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, USA
Harvard Seers Project, Harvard University OFA, Cambridge, MA, USA

2002 Tourist Project, Rice University Art Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
    
2000 Living Room Project, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA, USA
The Sleeping Project, Lombard Freid Fine Arts, New York City, USA 
 
1999 Lee Mingwei 1994–1998, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH, USA

1998 Way Stations, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, USA
The Letter-Writing Project, The Fabric Workshop & Museum, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Selected Group Exhibitions

2006 Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK
Artist-as-Resident Project, Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Tokyo, Japan

2005 Elegance of Silence, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Inaugural exhibition, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK

2004 Whitney Seers Project, Whitney Biennial, New York City, USA  

2003 The Sleeping Project, Venice Biennale, Taiwan Pavilion, Venice, Italy
Away from Home, Wexner Center for the Arts, Cleveland, OH, USA     
Mind Space, Ho-Am Art Museum, Seoul, South Korea

2002 Mosquito Cinema, Sitelines, Addison Gallery of American Art, Boston, MA, USA

2001 The Gift, Palazzo delle Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea, Siena, Italy
The Bayberry Bush, Parrish Art Museum, South Hampton, NY, USA

2000 Shrine Project, Taipei Biennial, Taipei, Taiwan
The Gift of Hope, Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan

1999 Asia Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia

Further Reading

Scarlet Cheng, ‘A Master Revisited’, Los Angeles Times, 9 May 2004

Holland Cotter, ‘Lee Mingwei, Projects 80’, New York Times, 21 November 2003

Holland Cotter, ‘Asia Week is Here, There, Everywhere’, New York Times, 1 April 2005

Kay Karson, ‘To Take Part in the Art, You Sleep with the Artist’, New York Times, 5 November 2001

Janet Moore, ‘Rebel without a Genre’, Asian Wall Street Journal, 18 January 2002