In spaces of everyscape, at time without end
Open studio: 06 pm, Fri, 19 July 2024
Showcase: 11 am – 07 pm, Tues – Sun, 20 July – 18 Aug 2024
Manzi Exhibition Space
No.2 ngõ Hàng Bún, Ba Đình, Hà Nội
From the organizer:
In this open studio, Nguyen Tran Nam, a Hanoi-based visual artist whose idiosyncratic oeuvre has been shaped by recurring themes of violence & power, death & immortality / incarnation, doubt & imagination, will extend his exploration into surrealism and speculative fiction. Titled ‘In spaces of everyscape, at time without end’, his fourth showcase at manzi and his first-ever body of painting using dzo paper as the main medium will present a catalogue of situations. Some of them are common and familiar in his art world, but the majority of other scenarios are quite new and uninvestigated. More than a reflection of his private memories and obsessions that haunted the artist himself, this series also depicts a shared curse put on his homeland and surrounding people, as indicated by the tactful allusions to some past sociopolitical episodes and the unrest of the current climate. That kind of subtlety and understatement in his paintings stimulates numerous possibilities for interpretation and fictionalization, with three innovative perspectives are suggested:
– First is the shift in context and space (resulting from material changes): By stepping out of the familiar domain of lacquer and oil paint, which has long been identified with the artist, and toward a new material surface that is fragile yet much more free to drift—dzo paper—the context within Nam’s paintings is devoid of any specified position and staging arrangement. With borders dissolved, ‘the spaces of everyscape’, therefore, collapsed into one and single co-presence, in which everything comes into being and anything is permitted. Such a universe allows for both violence and oppression; fancy is all soothed with dreams, and no doubt is left unresolved.
– Second is the set of signals coming from the characters in paintings: absurd yet consistent. The human-shaped individuals, the main protagonists of Nguyễn Trần Nam’s painting, continue to be presented without faces or any definitive identities. These mysterious characters are performing indecipherable actions, whether in an innocent, despairing posture or a sly, cunning masquerade.Their motivations and ambitions remain ambiguous. However, it is evident that no matter how minor or benign the behaviors begin, when reenacted by the protagonists, all activities become brutalized or ritualized, full of menace and divinity.
– Third is the presence of a new set of bizarre objects (a ladder, a dead tree, a fallen eye, dissected internal organs, a deer carcass, etc.). The co-existing structure of space, projected around this system of symbols, will undoubtedly bloom with numerous new signs, much like an illusion sprouting from the rotation of a kaleidoscope: They are holy relics or evidence denouncing sins, remnants from an execution site or a sacrifice altar, an imperative punishment or a deliberate voluntary offering…
Ten years after his first presentation at manzi (solo exhibition ‘Broken Chapters’), ‘In spaces of everyscape, at time without end’ marked a change in the concept, aesthetics, and creative energy of Nguyễn Trần Nam, promising a new chapter in his future practice.
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