HCMC – Exhibition “Heaven is a Place”

Opening: Wed 24 Apr, 6 – 8 pm
Exhibition: 24 Apr – 25 May 2013
Galerie Quynh

From the organizer:
You are invited to Hanoi-based artist Ha Manh Thang’s first solo exhibition in Ho Chi Minh City. Featuring a new body of work depicting monuments and edifices that symbolize Vietnam’s urban centers,HEAVEN IS A PLACE reflects the artist’s continued concern in reconciling Vietnam’s cultural and social history with the dramatic changes the country has undergone since Doi Moi.

HEAVEN IS A PLACE questions the connections between the buildings we construct and the ideals they embody. Thang looks at powerful and iconic monuments such as Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum, the Hue Citadel, Ben Thanh Market and Bitexco Financial Tower and reduces them to their basic forms with no visible details. These reconstructions/erasures resemble rudimentary architectural drawings against anonymous backgrounds, or appear like silhouettes in an ominous almost apocalyptic scene. Vulnerable and exposed, their physical, imposing stature may seem diminished but their symbolic power still exists. That their identities cannot be stripped entirely reveals how deeply the images and ideals are ingrained in our collective consciousness. Is it possible to even reexamine the meanings and power of these structures? What do the transparent layers in these landscapes suggest? When these landscapes physically disappear, will they continue to be relevant or will their significance be lost?

Born in 1980 in Thai Nguyen Province, Ha Manh Thang is one of Vietnam’s most important young painters. He was also the only artist from Vietnam profiled in the Phaidon publication ‘Painting Today’ (2009) alongside acclaimed artists such as Gerhard Richter, Neo Rauch and Peter Doig. Having graduated from the Hanoi Fine Arts University in 2004, Thang has since held a number of notable regional and international exhibitions including Instruments of Meditation: Works of Art from the Zoltán Bodnár Collection, Reök Palace, Budapest, Hungary (2011); Connect: Kunstzene Vietnam, ifa Galleries, Berlin and Stuttgart, Germany (2009); The rain and the small stream presented by Ernst & Young’s Asean Art Outreach program, Singapore (2008); and Post Doi Moi: Vietnamese Art After 1990, Singapore Art Museum (2008). Ha Manh Thang currently lives and works in Hanoi.

Contact information: Tung Mai (English and Vietnamese) [email protected].