Essential questions: Lee Mingwei

Taiwanese–American artist Lee Mingwei is creating an intimate and contemplative space for visitors within the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ new building. Working closely with SANAA architects, Lee has incorporated his work Spirit House – one of the Sydney Modern Project art commissions – into the building’s external rammed earth wall.

‘I am extremely happy to be in the presence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists in the collection … I feel very connected to them and am very honoured and happy to be selected as one of the commissioned artists,’ Lee said. ‘For the work Spirit House, I would like the visitor to look into their own life experience, and how the work can initiate a conversation when they look inward. It may be nothing at all, or it may be something profound. I hope the work will create a sense of resonance with their personal story, and once that is formed, there are infinite possibilities. Hopefully this can become a part of your interior world and grow and change with you when you leave the gallery.’

Why do you make art?

I started out as a biologist in college and quickly realised that in most professions, at least in biology and the sciences, there are absolute correct things and absolute wrong things. I felt constrained by this clear delineation between right and wrong. As a person, I want to be in a place that has no right or wrong; and as an artist, I am in a place to have that mentality and privilege. I say privilege, because hopefully, I do not take this for granted. I need harmony to create my work, a place for me to be original. Contemporary art and art forms celebrate the ability to be original.

Can you think of a cultural experience that changed the way you see the world?

One of my most profound life experiences was living in a Chan monastery in Taiwan for six summers since I was six years old. As a child, this experience gave me an opportunity to experience, hear and witness a reclusive surrounding, very different from the urban setting of Taipei in the late 1960s. As novices in Buddhism practising with our teachers, we were encouraged to focus inward and look for questions inside ourselves. The teacher noted, ‘The answer always exists with the question. Since the question has arisen, the answer is ready to show itself to you, but you have to ask the right question.’

Yet as a child growing up in Taiwan, I was constantly excited and impressed with the outside world. I was not ready until one day there was a moment of transition, when a koan was proposed to me to describe what an apple is. Over one hour I exhausted all my ability and words to describe what an apple is. But then holding the apple, smelling it, and using all my senses provided me a key and small window to understand all answers are inside this little body – but also the need to be in harmony with the outside world – which allowed me to find the answer inside myself.

Which artist/s would you like to meet?

I would love to meet Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when he was a young child in the Salzburg court, especially to see him practise, and experience his wit, charm and talent as a six- or seven-year-old. I am very curious to encounter him before the blossoming of his talent, knowing that he would be one of the greatest composers in the Western canon. I don’t know if he was aware of his talents, his possibilities or his power to create compositions that would be admired for generations to come. Maybe he did, maybe he did not, but I would be eager to be next to a child genius, see how he was as a child, and feel his naivety and humbleness. It would also be really fun to live in that particular period, to experience the court and cultural institutions of that era.

Which one Art Gallery of New South Wales collection work could you live with?

I am particularly drawn to the work of Australian Indigenous artist Crusoe Kurddal. In the collection, there are five works titled Mimih spirit from 1985 and 2002, depicting Arnhem Land spirits. These beings are described as having extremely thin and elongated bodies, so thin that a slight wind can break their necks. For me, I have never seen anything like these sculptures, but there is something in the form that is very familiar to me. They appear similar to Ignazio Jacometti’s figures, but these feel closer to me, I don’t know why … maybe it’s the wood or the materials, or the form is so organic. There is something in it that is such poetry for me. I respond to the work with a lot of admiration and affection.

What is art for?

I don’t know … Can the world live without art? I don’t think we can. So, there must be some purpose … If I must place a purpose on the existence of art, first of all, for myself as an artist, I create artwork to liberate some of the energies within me to share with the people around me. If I don’t share these feelings, thoughts and visions, I would feel stifled and unsatisfied. On the other hand, would it matter if people did not see my work? I would say no, it would not matter to me if people see it or not, so I would still create art if people cannot see it. I still would be very creative. Of course, I can speak about the purpose of art education, its importance in teaching us how to observe and discover the grace and beauty within each of us, which can be visual, dance, nature, but the purpose of art … it may not be important to categorise.

The Art Gallery’s new building and Spirit House are open from 3 December 2022.

A version of this article first appeared in Look – the Gallery’s members magazine