”Spatium” – Open Studio by Lương Văn Việt
Open working studio: 10 am – 04 pm, 20 Dec 2024 – 02 Jan 2025
Open sculpture-space & introduce the work: 11 am – 07 pm, 05 – 19 Jan 2025
Manzi Exhibition Space
3 Ngõ Hàng Bún, Nguyễn Trung Trực, Ba Đình, Hà Nội
From the organizer:
Luong Van Viet, one of Vietnam’s most important sculptors today, will introduce his latest practice at Manzi this December. Titled ‘Spatium’, this unprecedented experimentation with space-time-material-form comprises of two phases:
– Open working studio: 10 am – 04 pm, from 20 Dec 2024 to 02 Jan 2025.
For 2 weeks, manzi will turn into a working studio where the artist will complete his large-scale sculpture and handle the installation directly. Visitors are welcomed to watch and record throughout the process.
– Open sculpture-space & introduce the work: 11 am – 07 pm, from 5 Jan to 19 Jan
The installation-sculpture artwork, whether completed or unfinished, is open to the public and invites interactions.
Title of the open studio, Spatium is a Latin word, which roughly translates to “space,” encompasses many concepts in many different contexts: it can refer to the general place/room of existence, the physical space governed by natural laws, or the area intervened and covered – a significant quantity that must be calculated and considered in architecture and construction. When used in more abstract contexts, the term ‘spatium’ serves as the root for notions and theories in social studies or philosophy, referring to the voids, gaps, and factors that define the distance or connection, as well as specific theory in ontology about perception and reality.
Spatium by Lương Văn Việt, which literally comes into being right inside Manzi Exhibition Space, is not just a sculptural practice but rather a space-shaping and space-questioning exercise in numerous aspects. This exhibition room that hosted more than 30 different showcases and installations with works of various forms and materials continuously residing and moving out over the last 5 years, inevitably have been marked with all traces of intervention in the space: erecting and demolishing, hanging on the ceiling and digging down the floor. Now, the entire space is flattened literally, all the holes be filled and the marks be covered, all the walls be repainted in white, only white, a thorough stripping and cleaning in a way of going back to the beginning, returning to a pure state: empty and clear. A blank space. It prepares and waits. Large corten steel plates, then are hauled in, bent, and put together into a single artwork hanging on a support system, allowing visitors to walk around, lean down, and look inside. All steps of this procedure are carried out in one and only place, which have fused all creative spaces – artist’s studio, installation/construction site and an exhibition room into just a singular existence. A place will actively nurture and create an object instead of passively waiting to be occupied and taken over. Space determines the structural form and presence of the displayed object; conversely, a piece of sculpture, when moving and adapting in space, also simultaneously rewrites the surrounding rhythm and regulates the breath of that place. In this sense, a sculpture is no longer labeled as a distinct and unchanging unit or a singular presence defined only by shape, weight, and volume against a white background, but rather the space itself : both the container and the contained, the occupied and the blank, the solids and voids, being and nothingness, all of them constitute the sculpture.
Aside from such experimenting with interpretations in work of art, installation & sculpture, this adventure at manzi also unveils numerous possibilities within the gaps that exist between idea and reality, concept and creation, as well as between industrial materials and manual techniques, and technical calculations and aesthetic values. The variable is also concealed in the approach of 𝘚𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘶𝘮: the rotation, the duality of creating and exhibiting spaces, and the dimensions of experiences within them. Artist studio – the working environment is determined by the artist’s internal, psychological, and private experiences, which have now been transformed into an external, social, and public area that is responsive and uncertain.
𝘚𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘶𝘮 at Manzi, therefore, is a brave and unconventional endeavour by an audacious artist who believes strongly in the creative process itself. Like a dedicated traveler, Viet walks tirelessly on a journey that seems endless; he embraces all the encounters and revelations along the way, whether they come in the form of challenges or setbacks.
About artist
Born in 1977, graduated from the Viet Nam University of Art in 2002, Luong Van Viet is considered one of the best sculptors in Hanoi today.
Using minimal shapes and colours to create a sophisticated and elegant contrast, Viet’s works explore and push boundaries between spaces and forms, revealing the philosophy of coexistence and human existentialism.
Luong Van Viet has held 9 solo exhibitions including: ‘Sense’ at Manzi Art Space in 2016; he also took part intensively in different group sculpture exhibitions in Vietnam and abroad.
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