Exhibition “In the Forest”
09 am – 08 pm, Tues – Sun, 27 Aug – 29 Oct 2023
Mơ Art Space
Floor B3, 136 Hàng Trống, Hoàn Kiếm, Hà Nội
From the organizer:
This August, Mo Art Space cordially present to art lovers “In the FOREST” – an exhibition by the twin artists Le Brothers.
“Looking back at Le Brothers’ body of works, it can be seen that they are simply endless conversations between the internal world and external objects and phenomena, which are engaged in by two people who are individual characters sharing one artistic identity. These conversations are a continuous attempt at answering age-old yet evergreen questions: Who am I? Each of these questions put forward a statement on circumstance and identity, to which art was used as a vehicle for the artists’ answers. A new question would then appear and resume this endless cycle.
In the FOREST, their most recent project, is an exception to their previous practices. While it is a conversation between the duo and the external world, unlike their previous works, it looks at the entities existing in the external world as subjects existing alongside the artists, not just a pretext to reflect a mind-body-spirit’s narrative.
Started in 2021, In the FOREST first materialized as a series of large oil-on-canvas paintings, which then turned into painted antique door and chest frames, which were treated like painting surfaces with their corresponding three-dimensional textures and heavy materials, following by moving-image videos filmed during their Forest Trips. The large-size horizontal oil paintings have no beginning nor ending. Their surfaces are composed of crisscrossing strips of colors of different shades, from warm and brilliant to cold and dark. The paintings were created in the signature creative style of Lê Brothers: the duo took turn working on the expanses of colors to alternatively recited their emotions and awareness of the FOREST, of being in the FOREST. This recitation was presented in a continuous dialogue, a constant narration.”
– excerpt from curatorial text by Nguyễn Anh Tuấn.
About Lê Brothers
Thanh Le Ngoc and Hai Le Duc (Le Brothers), born in 1975 in the Quang Binh Province, were first noticed as the artists of Vietnamese lacquer painting of war topics. In 2000 both graduated from the Hue College of Arts.
After painting, the artists started creating performances and video works highlighting the metaphor of similarity. Many of their works are known for their unique approach to history, identity and the interpretation of the past in the present.
Le Brothers have exhibited and performed nationally and internationally, including, The Nord gallerie in Berlin (2018), Vietnam Eye in START at Saatchi Gallery in London (2017) The Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok (2016), Gwangju Museum of Art (2016), Kumamoto Contemporary Art Museum in Japan (2015),The Live Performance Biennale 2015 in Canada, Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2015), Queens Museum (2015), the Croatian Association of Visual Artists in Zagreb (2015), Iran CP Biennale (2014), FreeS Art Space in Taipei, Taiwan (2014), Singapore Biennale (2013), Selected projects include ‘The Bridge II’, performance at DMZ Gang Hwa,Korea (2012),‘Before ‘86’, Cheongju Complex Cultural Center, Korea (2012), ‘Communicate with the times’, Saigon Open City, Vietnam (2006), ‘Window to Asian”Vietnam (2001)….
Their works are in numerous national and international private and museums collections, including the Singapore Contemporary Art, Museum Gwangju Museum of Art and The Jim Thompson Art Center.
The Le Brothers also have been connecting artists across the world through Vietnam’s first artists-in-residence program, the New Space Arts Foundation, which they launched in April 2008, from a gallery they founded in 2000.
The Le Brothers live with their families in Hue, Vietnam.
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