Minnesota Street Project Foundation (MSP Foundation), in partnership with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, is thrilled to announce the debut of Lee Mingwei’s new performance installation, Chaque Souffle Une Danse (Each Breath a Dance), April 5–May 5, 2024 at 1201 Minnesota Street.

Commissioned by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Chaque Souffle Une Danse is presented along with the artist’s first major U.S. exhibition, Lee Mingwei: Rituals of Care, on view at the de Young museum. Part of the MSP Foundation’s annual series of programs co-presented at 1201 Minnesota, Chaque Souffle Une Danse will be on view from April 5 through May 5, with free, ticketed performances Thursday through Sunday. Performances take place at 7:00 pm on Thursday and Friday, 2:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Escalating global discord and a tumult of emotions prompted artist Lee Mingwei to practice a “regimen of deep, tranquil breathing”, an act that both grounded the artist in the moment and provided the creative inspiration for Chaque Souffle Une Danse. Over an extended period, directly following his daily meditation, Mingwei watched the sun setting on the horizon each evening and began creating his “breath drawings.” Taking contemplative breaths and slowly exhaling to move droplets of sumi ink across alabaster slabs, each new artwork “assumed a distinctive essence, an embodiment of the atmospheric conditions and emotional context inherent at the specific moment of creation,” said Lee Mingwei.

For the 1201 Minnesota debut performances, Mingwei’s “breath drawings,” positioned in a large circle on 60 metal and wood candle stands, delineate the literal performance space, and provide a metaphysical space for reflection. Lasting approximately 45 minutes, Chaque Souffle Une Danse is activated when a single dancer enters the exhibition space, moving slowly among the candle stands displaying the alabaster breath drawings. Upon encountering each drawing, the dancer lights a candle. Once all the panels are lit, each candle one by one is then extinguished. Throughout the performance the exhibition space cycles between states of illumination and darkness, offering, Mingwei notes, “viewers a journey through rhythms that punctuate both art and life, a possible contemplation of the symbiosis between opposites, and how one gives meaning to the other.”  

Following Minnesota Street Project Foundation’s first week of performances at 1201 Minnesota, Chaque Souffle Une Danse (Each Breath a Dance) will be represented by a film on view at the de Young museum from April 9 through July 7, 2024.

Born in Taiwan in 1964, Lee Mingwei currently resides in New York, Paris, and Taipei. He creates participatory installations that enable strangers to engage with concepts of trust, intimacy, and self-awareness. In addition, he conducts one-on-one events in which he and visitors explore these themes through daily activities like eating, sleeping, writing, and conversing. His projects often create open-ended scenarios for everyday interactions, adapting and transforming with participant involvement throughout an exhibition's duration.

Lee Mingwei received his MFA from Yale University in 1997 and has since presented his solo exhibitions internationally at venues including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern, London; Gropius Bau, Berlin; Sydney Modern Project; Taipei Fine Arts Museum; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Australia; Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, New Zealand; Ateneum Art Museum: Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has also been featured in biennials in Venice, Lyon, Sharjah, Liverpool, Taipei, Sydney, Echigo-Tsumari, and the Whitney, as well as the Asia Pacific Triennial.

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