-
From Current Issue
-
- Editor’s Letter Fire in the Heart
- Reviews I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih
- Reviews 11th Seoul Mediacity Biennale: “One Escape at a Time”
- Dispatch Networked China
- One on One Monira Al Qadiri on Yukio Mishima
- Essays The rise of independent art spaces in pandemic-era Shanghai
- Features Tuan Andrew Nguyen
- Table of Contents
- Web Exclusives
- Archive
- Subscribe
R
E
V N
E
X
T
Installation view of LEE MINGWEI’s “The Tourist” at Perrotin, Tokyo, 2019. Photo by Kei Okano. All images courtesy the artist and Perrotin, Tokyo / Seoul / Hong Kong / Shanghai / Paris / New York.
Lee Mingwei is known for his participatory projects, which often engage audiences as collaborators, be it in a personal, one-to-one type of experience or via an open invitation to a general public. These exchanges are documented and then carefully represented in specific environments to create another set of encounters for different viewers around the world. The Tourist (2001– ), the subject of the artist’s third solo exhibition in Tokyo, which also marks his first presentation with Perrotin gallery, is no different. The work was commissioned by Houston’s Rice University Art Gallery in 2001, and has been traveling since its debut at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2003. It entails the artist touring various cities with local collaborators, who share with him specific places and experiences, based on their particular connections with the city. Lee and the guides document these tours in photos, which are displayed alongside objects from the respective locales. The project is ongoing, and is expected to reach completion in 2020 in Berlin.
At Perrotin Tokyo, visitors could catch glimpses of the latest iteration of The Tourist through the gallery’s glass exterior walls as they walked through the building’s courtyard. A wooden sculptural structure, which functioned simultaneously as a bench and plinth with built-in, glass-topped display cases, occupied most of the space, while two projections on the wall behind the central structure cycled through a collection of photos. Upon entering the gallery, visitors could examine the random objects in the display cases. Some of the items, such as a toy yellow cab and a votive from a Shinto shrine, were clearly tied to certain places, whereas it wasn’t as apparent where other artefacts, including an artificial wreathe and music score, were from until viewers deciphered the projected still images. These were taken by nine guides across nine different cities, among them Tokyo, New York, Jakarta and Tainan. The channel on the right showed snapshots by the collaborators, while the one on the left comprised the photos that Lee took, both captured during their tours. The guides narrated the depicted events and explained the significances of the destinations in accompanying voice recordings. Through these accounts, viewers could surmise each guide’s relationships with Lee, which were collectively underpinned by a sense of intimacy. The projections were also backed by music that the collaborators had selected, adding to the heartwarming quality of the exchanges. However, as viewers looked more closely at the slides, the gap between the perspectives of the guide and artist became more pronounced. The photographs by the two parties were taken at the same points of the tour, yet—though the subject matter could be the same—no two images were identical. In this way, Lee effectively employs the most fundamental act of a tourist—looking—to draw attention to the different possible ways of perceiving a place.
The Tourist’s key question, “How does here look from there, and there from here?” has affinities with the research of art critic Lucy Lippard. As Lippard argued in her presentation at the 2010 Falmouth Convention, in the tourism industry, tourists are often foregrounded above the sites and people that they visit. Quoting sociology scholar Dean MacCannell, author of the seminal book The Tourist (1976), she claimed that there is “a gap that can be narrowed but never closed” between visitors and the “visited,” but what is needed is respect for such a gap. This is precisely what The Tourist brings viewers to realize. The discrepancies between the images by the artist and the tour guides might appear to reify the dichotomy of “me” and “them.” However, that difference can be empowering as it prompts us to exchange information, and learn to share and coexist. The guide offers the tourist their treasured experience and knowledge, and the tourist gives back by sharing their viewpoints. Fundamentally collaborative, The Tourist communicates this two-sided message, underscoring the opportunities that can be found in the impossibility of being the same.
Lee Mingwei’s “The Tourist” is on view at Perrotin, Tokyo, until June 26, 2019.
To read more of ArtAsiaPacific’s articles, visit our Digital Library.
