Lee Mingwei (b. 1964, Taiwan)
Sonic Blossom, 2013-present

AGSA, Adelaide (SA), Australia / Visited 15/11/2019

A personal gift of a song for (apparently randomly) selected member of the audience to a national gallery.

I keep looking for alternative modes of presenting works and interacting with audience. One-to-one performative works have a particular appeal to me as I struggle with group interactions. This case is also interesting as it is mixing personal and public – while a particular listener is singled out, seated and focused by the singer, anybody in the gallery can observe the performance as bystanders. It is also interesting that this work is presented in a venue where audience comes primarily for more traditional visual artworks like paintings and sculpture – however, if someone has come for that, there is a good chance that the person in question is also more perceptible to other modalities of art than a random by-passer on the street. Interestingly, there was also a recorded audio work audible next door, but I was unable to find any gallery label to it, making its nature and status in the gallery ambiguous.

So relevance for me here is in making room for the work where it is not expected and delivering it in a different, more personal way.