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Wordless: Zenei Gang of Five

Posted on 02/02/2010

Opening: Thu 04 Feb, 6 – 8 pm
Exhibition: 04 Feb – 05 Mar
Art Vietnam

Zenei, a group of five, young avant-garde calligraphers, is forging a new path. In an act most easily understood as the merging of impassioned visual expression with a nearly extinct script, the Zenei group elevates both art and history to a new level of experience.

Nom, the ancient script of Vietnam and once the language in which all Vietnamese literature, philosophy and country records were recorded, is nearly forgotten. Today few people remain who can both read and write in Nom and five of those people have miraculously banded together to create Zenei. Through the conscious labor of accentuating artistic impulse with Taoist thought and action the Zenei group carries the Nom language forward from its place in history into the present moment.

By composing and decomposing, creating and composting, the Zenei group strips the language to its essence, creating a living, visual experience with indiscernible form, sound or meaning. Each of the five artists in Zenei have their own unique way of relating to this language in order to make it live again. Mirroring life itself, each approach emerges from a different seed and viewpoint.

To this group of young artists, “Wordless” means that which cannot be said, that which is both before and beyond the specificity of naming. To be without words is saying nothing and saying everything.