Conversations with Nguyen Manh Hung “Somewhere out There”
Duration: 21 Oct – 18 Nov 2016
Art Vietnam Gallery
From Art Vietnam Gallery:
October 21 Art Vietnam is proud to present the work of one of Vietnam’s most internationally acclaimed young artists with our Conversations with Nguyen Manh Hung, “Somewhere out There”.
Hung is exhibiting extensively abroad and recently returned from Korea where he participated in the Asia Young 36 contemporary art exhibition that advocates avant-garde, dynamism and the experimental nature of art with 36 young artists from 14 countries. In the Jeonbuk Museum of Art in South Korea Hung presented his work “The Barricade”, a 3D diorama that reflects the themes central to the artists’ practice of examining social and political issues that arise from the rapid chaotic growth of modernization. An apartment block installation created of wood with appendages attached helter skelter as the inhabitants try to accommodate the morphing influx of people, is topped by sand bags, evocative of society’s ever increasing fear and need for a sense of protection.
Hung’s work questions our contemporary lives filled with conflict, always finding some humor and irony as he focuses on visual relationships of disjointed elements depicted in unusual scales.
A multidisciplinary artist, Hung’s works include painting, sculpture, installation, music, and performance art, all with humor and exaggeration as their key elements.
“Somewhere out there” is comprised of a series of paintings, photographs and dioramas that are scenes of exaggerated situations depicting the conflicts we face in life with ironic, playful humor. Huge snails on runways, old armed soldiers seemingly from another age, a humorous large scale turtle with armed soldiers atop facing the unknown, a meeting of mandarins consulting on a runway while contemporary life flies overhead, all which serve to emphasize the conflict that we all face today and the myriad of comical reactions and attempts to resolve it.
As the artist says, “We all have heard, seen so much information about human conflict, not only on earth but even in space. Justice is a luxurious concept and Peace is a fragile treasure, difficult to get and preserve.”
Nguyen Manh Hung has exhibited widely internationally in Japan, Australia, Sweden, Korea, France, the USA and has attended numerous residencies in France, the USA and Korea. Hung represented Vietnam in the prestigious 7th Asia Pacific Triennial , Queensland Art Gallery in 2012, in 2014 he had a solo exhibition and residency at the Musee D’Art Contemporaine Du Val-de Marre (MacVal) in France, in 2015 a solo exhibition “Where is the Enemy” and residency as part of the Creative Fusion program of the Clevland Foundation, Ohio and was a participant in the Mien Meo Mieng (Land of Distortion) exhibition curated by Tran Luong in Bildemuseet, Umea, Sweden. Most recently Hung participated in the Asia Young 36 – Asia Contemporary Art Exhibition at the Jeonbuk Museum of Art, South Korea 2016.
Hung’s works are in the permanent collections in the USA in the Francis J. Greenburger Collection, Art Omi NY, GT Art Holding LLC, NYC, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the Alessandro Marena Project, Milan Italy and in many private collections worldwide.
We at Art Vietnam Gallery are honored to work with this very talented and wise young artist who is leading the way to contemporary art in Vietnam.
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