A contemporary artist uses ordinary human interactions to create thought-provoking art.

Lee Mingwei's simple yet elegant installations provide a stage for interpersonal exchange around ordinary human events or activities -- admiring an object, making conversation, or writing a letter to a friend or family member. His past installations such as "The Dining Project "and "The Letter-Writing Project" are explored along with a recent project developed while an artist in residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum called "The Living Room." This installation creates a modern-day version of the salon life the museum's founder used to enliven her collection.

In his essay, Lewis Hyde asks us to consider Isabella Gardner's intentions in creating a place that was her home as well as a public space for appreciating art. Lee's new installation reflecting his interest in Gardner's interaction with visitors to her museum at the turn of the century and his installations as exchanges between viewer and artist are explored in an essay by Jennifer Gross.

JENNIFER R. GROSS is the Gardner's Curator of Contemporary Art. LEWIS HYDE is author of Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art (1998) and recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship.

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