Exhibition “Ambiguity | Affitta” by Artist Pham Tuan Tu

Opening: Sat 18 Oct 2014, 5.30 pm
Exhibition: 18 – 27 Oct 2014
Nguyen Art Gallery

From the organizer:

ACCAviet cordially presents a piece of solo exhibition of painter Pham Tuan Tu named “Ambiguity | Affitta”.

What is AFFITTA?

AFFITTA is an Italian word used for imperative. AFFITTA means “FOR RENT” and Ambiguity in Vietnamese expresses a state of vagueness and being unclear, half this side and the other half in the other side. This tends to lead to chaos and disorder.

Why do the exhibition named AMBIGUITY | AFFITTA?

This is a solo show of artist Pham Tuan Tu. This exhibition includes nearly 40 paintings through almost seven years of the artist’s creative activities since 2008 up to present.

The artworks of Pham Tuan Tu all carry the cold grey color tone. The shapes in the works are absentminded and aimless. It seems like them don’t need any connection with the earth. The body and the head are like the two opposing essences. A borrowed head for a body or a naked body is renting another head. Everything seems to be mellow and unable to identify. The borderlines between the owner and the renter are erased. The state of renting becomes the state of ambiguity. There’s no distinction between the borders of genders, space and spirit.

Looking at Tuan Tu’s works, it is not merely considered from the gender perspective. The ambiguity of appearance, inner soul, gender, spirituality is a part of his creative process but not necessary as the most important factor. This factor is borrowed and used through the empowering language of the arts. With the style mixed between irony, arrogance and solidarity, he wanted to tell the stories between human beings. It could be very humane, cold or mournful. With his works which are full of emotions in life journey, one individual journey, the fate and spirituality through the physical living time. The coldness or indifference are all the laws of heaven and earth.

There are some comments by painter Pham Quang Hieu – a closed friend of Pham Tuan Tu:

“…Seeing the works of Tu, we could easily associate with the horror films from Hollywood or the book “Strange stories from a Chinese Studio” by Pu Songling. The plaintive lyrics of Pham Duy are echoing somewhere else: “The afternoon goes by quietly/ The flowers and the graves are fading/ Oh the white flower color of the funeral? I want to do the ceremony for your broken love…in a late winter I went to the pagoda/ To say farewell to you my darling in this coffin…!

…Deviating from the normal trajectory of aesthetics, he uses symbols and true feelings. Pham Tuan Tu has brought us into a world where the black-white, good-evil, male-female… is not really to differentiate. Even the artist tried to attach the theme to a certain social issue, but in an unconscious manner. Tu’s works still placed before us a more fundamental question about the human nature and human being.”

“Ambiguity – Affitta” exhibition is the first solo exhibition by Pham Tuan Tu in Vietnam, though a number of his works have been presented and displayed at the National Fine Arts Exhibition 2010, the Dogma Prize in Hochiminh City in 2013 and National Festival of Young Artists in 2014 in Hanoi.

“Ambiguity – Affitta” will be opened at 05:30 P.M, Saturday October 18th 2014 at the Nguyen Art gallery, 31A Van Mieu St., Hanoi and will be showcased until the end of October 27th 2014.

This event is made possible thanks to generous supports from Danish Cultural Development and Exchange Fund in Vietnam (CDEF).

Communications Partners: Hanoi Grapevine