Lee Mingwei

LEE MINGWEI
BEST REGARDS, LEE MINGWEI
26.9 2025 – 11.1 2026

Curator: Elisabeth Millqvist

Press Preview: Thursday, September 25, 10 am

Lee Mingwei’s artworks begin with an invitation. The invitation might be to write a letter or to bring in an article of clothing in need of repair or a hand-made garment with special significance – and let this become part of the exhibition. The mundane and private are given both space and attention. The artist’s material is relationships and time. The situations that Lee Mingwei creates are based on personal experiences and events that take on new forms and new contexts. His artworks open up the possibility of giving, receiving, and sharing.

This fall, Moderna Museet Malmö presents “The Letter Writing Project”, “Fabric of Memory”, and “The Mending Project”. These works were first produced in 1998, 2006, and 2009, respectively, and are reproduced in new locations and in new contexts. During the entire exhibition period in Malmö, the works will grow and transform. They are shown alongside films from the projects “Guernica in Sand” (2006), “Sonic Blossom” (2013), and “When Beauty Visits” (2017), giving insight into Lee Mingwei’s working process.

“Museums are entrusted with the charge of collecting artworks, but in his art, Lee Mingwei shifts the focus from the object itself to the ephemeral. While many artists deal with conceptual works in a society, he uses the museum and the institution as a place for his work. There, he pushes the boundaries that might define who is an artist, what art is, and how a museum can function,” says the exhibition’s curator, museum director Elisabeth Millqvist.

“The Mending Project” is an intimate exchange between two individuals: one who repairs and one whose garment is repaired. The visitor is invited to bring a garment that needs to be repaired or embellished. “Fabric of Memory” is the result of long conversations that began with a widely-cast net. The artist and the museum asked people to contribute textiles someone had made for them that had been saved through the years. A knitted scarf, a precious wedding dress, or velvet pants sewn for a teddy bear – garments with stories become exhibition objects and part of a dialogue about memories, relationships, and what a collection can be. “The Letter Writing Project” is an assignment that the viewer of the exhibition can choose to be part of, either through writing a letter or by reading letters written by others.

Artist Lee Mingwei describes the contributions to Moderna Museet Malmö in this way: “These stories are truly beautiful, each group carrying its own unique resonance. What strikes me most with this group, as a whole, is the way they reveal bonds between grandmothers, daughters, and grandchildren – those deeply powerful female relationships. Reading them brought back vivid memories of my own grandmother and mother. These two women have been the greatest inspiration, not only in my work but in my life. Their strength, tenderness, and presence continue to guide me, just as these stories with their owners”.

Performance has always played a leading role at Moderna Museet, and in Malmö, performance is an important part of the museum’s programming. Lee Mingwei’s art is part of an art tradition that not only builds on performativity and participation but also has its roots in traditions connected to gifts and rituals, anchored in aesthetic and philosophical concepts from different cultures.

Lee Mingwei lives in Paris, New York, and Taipei. From the period when he received his masters from Yale University in 1997, a dinner invitation extended to strangers launched the working method that became characteristic of his artistic approach. He has exhibited extensively and had retrospective exhibitions, among them “Lee Mingwei and His Relations: The Art of Participation” at Mori Art Museum in 2014, Taipei Fine Arts Museum and Auckland Art Gallery, “Lee Mingwei: Li, Gifts, and Rituals” at Gropius Bau in Berlin (2020) and Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, as well as “Lee Mingwei: Rituals of Care” at DeYoung in San Francisco (2024). His latest projects were shown at M+, Hong Kong, Centre Pompidou-Metz and Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts. He has also participated in group exhibitions at Bonniers konsthall, Stockholm (2018), Copenhagen Contemporary (2023), and Ateneum, Helsinki (2021). “Best Regards” is Lee Mingwei’s first solo exhibition in the Nordic Countries.

“Best Regards, Lee Mingwei” opens during the first evening of Malmö Gallery Weekend.

Members of the press are invited to a preview on Thursday, September 25 at 10 am at Moderna Museet Malmö with Lee Mingwei and Elisabeth Millqvist.

RSVP by September 23 to Alexandra Giertz, a.giertz@modernamuseet.se.

For any questions, or requests for additional press images, please contact press.malmo@modernamuseet.se.

Moderna Museet Malmö is a part of the state-owned Moderna Museet and is financed by the city of Malmö, Region Skåne, and the Swedish government.