Exhibition “Three Squares, The Moon and some Canarium Fruit”

03 and 04 Dec 2016, 2 – 8 pm
Áo Phố
343 Bach Dang Str, Hoan Kiem Dist, Hanoi

From the artist:

Come to “Three Squares, The Moon and some Canarium Fruit”, a short exhibition by Simon Boudvin: Ordinary ornaments in the vernacular architecture of Hanoi.

“The culture is what remains when we have forgotten everything else.”
(I don’t remember who wrote this sentence…)

Over the past two months, Simon Boudvin has spent time observing and recording the decorative details of the buildings of Hanoi. From these details, Boudvin has extracted three geometrical shapes – squares (triple), circles and diamonds – and brought them together here, his first version of a slideshow work that features a collection of these ornaments. In highlighting architectural forms, Boudvin is not interested in the more exceptional or excessive representations of rococo architectures. Instead, he wants to draw attention to common, simple forms within the most banale motifs; forms that are reproduced within the cityscape unconsciously and become part of people’s everyday environment. The artist has also created some posters pointing out these minimal figures, influenced by plates from an ancient atlas of decorative arts.

The presentation of this work takes place at Áo Phố, a new workshop on Bạch Đằng Street that prints graphics and logotypes on T-Shirts. A special edition of T-shirt is available for this exhibition, inspired by the local ornaments.

Simon Boudvin (Fr, 1979), artist, teaches at the Paris-Malaquais national school of architecture. His work revolves around the disruptions and wastes of the everyday built environment and the process of building, which he approaches using both a scrupulous scientific approach and various artistic languages, ranging from photography to technical drawing and sculpture.

His work has been displayed in different art centers; Form Content (London, 2008), Les Eglises (Chelles, 2011); Credac (Ivry, 2012); Project arts center (Dublin, 2015); Crac Alsace (Altkirch, 2015); and periodically at Jean Brolly’s gallery (Paris, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2015).

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