HCMC – Exhibition “Farmers’ Got Power” by Nguyen Manh Hung

Opening: Fri 18 Mar 2016, 6 pm
Exhibition: 18 Mar – 23 Apr 2016
Galerie Quynh

From the organizer:

You are invited to the exhibition “Farmers’ Got Power” by Nguyen Manh Hung, one of Vietnam’s most accomplished young artists. For his second solo exhibition at the gallery, Nguyen has created a new body of sculptures, paintings and photos depicting an absurd world under constant threat where the past, present and future collapse into one perpetual cycle.

Images of soldiers, weapons, planes and fire trucks suggest a sense of urgency, calamity and danger, yet the addition of domesticated creatures (turtles, chickens and even a snail) pose little menace. An ambiguous violence is suggested within a calm, subdued atmosphere. Through keen, satirical humor with elusive narratives, the artist looks at issues of power, control and protection.

Nguyen states, “These works depict the precautions and preparations as a defense for an impending upheaval – one that is unknown yet strangely familiar from the past. Precaution has become an everyday routine, as natural as we live and breathe.”

A reference to the reality TV show “America’s Got Talent” (the Got Talent franchise is broadcast in Vietnam as “Vietnam’s Got Talent”), “Farmers’ Got Power” is also an awkward phrasing of what could be a public slogan or comedic film. Are Nguyen’s farmers – in the guise of the domesticated animals – the heroes who save the world?

ABOUT NGUYEN MANH HUNG

Nguyen Manh Hung (born 1976, Hanoi) has participated in numerous international exhibitions including Mien Meo Mieng / Contemporary Art from Vietnam, Bildmuseet, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden; L’avventura – Lang Du, Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne (MAC/VAL), France; 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia; Connect: Art Scene Vietnam, ifa Galerie Berlin and Stuttgart, Germany; Lim Dim: Young Vietnamese Artists, Stenersenmuseet, Oslo, Norway; Strategies from Within, Ke Center for the Contemporary Arts, Shanghai, China; transPOP: Korea Vietnam Remix, ARKO Art Center, Seoul, Korea and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California, USA; and Thermocline of Art. New Asian Waves, ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany. Nguyen Manh Hung has held residencies at Creative Fusion, The Cleveland Foundation, Ohio, USA; Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, France; Asian Cultural Council, New York, New York, USA; and Art Omi International Arts Center, Ghent, New York, USA.

From 2008 – 2011 Nguyen Manh Hung was the Director of the dynamic Nha San Studio in Hanoi, one of the first non-profit artist-run spaces in Vietnam. Nguyen currently lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City.

Click here to read about his “One Planet” exhibition in Vietnam, and a review about it.