Sonic Blossom

Commissioned for the opening of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea in 2013, and having been presented in many of the world’s most prestigious institutions, including the Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the participatory performance piece by the Taiwanese–American artist LEE Mingwei is premiering in Italy at MAO, where it will be on view for one month.
Sonic Blossom is part of the evolution of the exhibition Buddha¹⁰. A fragmented display on Buddhist visual evolution, which will reopen to the public on May 6, with new works.

The MAO Museo d’Arte Orientale, Turin is delighted to present, in collaboration with the Conservatorio di Musica “Giuseppe Verdi”, Turin, and the Taipei Representative Office in Italy, the Italian premiere of the performance piece Sonic Blossom by the artist LEE Mingwei(Taipei, 1964).

From May 6 to June 4, 2023, Sonic Blossom will be performed at MAO in the Salone Mazzonis, creating a dialogue with the museum visitors, the works in the permanent collection, and the temporary exhibition Buddha¹⁰. A fragmented display on Buddhist visual evolution.

Selected and trained by Lee Mingwei in collaboration with music professor Erik Battaglia, seven singers from the Conservatorio “Giuseppe Verdi”, will alternate in the museum’s galleries for five weeks.

The singer will choose one visitor from among all those present and offer him or her a gift of a song of Schubert’s Lieder. If the visitor accepts the gift, he or she will be guided to the Salone Mazzonis and the performance will begin.

The performances depend on visitor participation and will be held Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 3 to 5 PM; Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 11 AM to 1 PM and from 3 to 5 PM.

The idea for Sonic Blossom developed out of LEE’s deeply personal experience: “Sonic Blossom came into existence while I was caring for my mother as she recuperated from surgery. We found great comfort in listening to Franz Schubert’s Lieder. These songs came as an unexpected gift to us, one that soothed us both and clearly helped with her healing. At another level, seeing my own mother weak and ill made her (and my) mortality suddenly very real; ageing, disease and death were no longer abstractions to me, but immediate and present. One day she – and I – will be gone. Like Schubert’s Lieder, our own lives are brief, but all the more beautiful because of this.”

With its capacity to generate a profound connection between two complete strangers, the participatory performance piece Sonic Blossom is a transformative giftto museum visitors, a moving invitation to trust and self-awareness.

LEE Mingwei’s performance piece – an exhibition with no objects – is an integral part of the new iteration of Buddha¹⁰, which will reopen to the public on May 6 radically changed. The link with Mingwei’s piece is especially meaningful and profound, since one of the most important aspects of Buddhism is the practice of compassion and the gift – communicated from heart to heart – the vibrant heart of Sonic Blossom.