Exhibition: 28 Jun – 09 Jul 2014
Historical Japanese House
No.9, Nanlong Rd., Longtan Township, Taoyuan County 325, Taiwan
From the organizer:
We would like to introduce the sculpture exhibition by Vietnamese artists: sculptors Pham Thai Binh, Khong Do Tuyen and curator Nguyen Anh Tuan.
Being an artist collective practicing in the concept of brings sculpture into the contemporary living space, New Form consists of sculptors living and working in Hanoi together with one curator. Founded in 2012, New Form collective’s art practice based on the search of the connection between architecture and sculpture. The collective tried to put the sculptural form in the organizational space thinking, sculpture experimentation in different contexts, searching for new possibility and new materials.
In Kotham project initiated by Outsiders Factory Art Collective held in Longton, Taiwan. New Form continued to carry out this concept especially in the works of two members Pham Thai Binh and Khong Do Tuyen. The works of the group expressed in such points:
– Creating a mass series of pieces using ready-made, recycled, cheap material at the location (Taiwan). According to the criteria and spirit of New Form, it was the sculpture experimentation in living space by new materials and new way of displaying. The artworks can be displayed in any spaces and has interaction with outside elements (as well as the environment). Thereby it presented to the audience about Vietnam contemporary sculpture through the creative thinking and artworks. At the same time, these artworks were interactive with the space and humans in the local context.
– In the works of Pham Thai Binh, he collected old letters from the older generations who kept them as a part of memories in their life. It is a part of a human being encoding by writing on papers. When transferring them into electronic mail, this part of memory was encoded by algorithms and transmitted by the networks protocols. The memories and private stories become very fast, convenient but easily forgotten and boring. The artist has transformed these old letters into small sculptures. He also took photo and explained the content of the letters in documents. When we put them together there are thousands of questions like “How can human emotions and memories exist in different physical forms?”, “And how can the true message being transferred?”… Coming to Taiwan, the artist collected newspapers both old and new and by chance there was some info about Vietnamese living in Taiwan. The story seems to be like an open door; from an individual story has connection with other stories inside a small community in a different space. These real ready-made objects, a strange land and the sculptors shared the same idea from Vietnam to Taiwan. This can create dialogs not within the exhibition space but inside the artworks itself.
– Khong Do Tuyen developed his sculptures like a part of the ready-made architecture. The cavity and the gap were used for developing the string structure like a combination of visual space. A sculpture comes from the idea of being tight in the artworks he followed before but still interacts with the space and the material structure. The artist uses materials close to the space like papers, wood, rope… and made an installation follow the interior design of a house. This is like a dialog and combination between the individual artistic idea and the location and story of the gallery space.
All the works produced in Taiwan displayed together with the works from Vietnam presents an interpretive process from concept to physical form. The change made by this shift from a familiar landscape into an alien one on the matter of culture and geography. It requires the skills to work with spontaneous materials in an unfamiliar place. The process itself was one of the concepts of the project. It is a self-adaptive process of the artists, which changed the behavior and thinking habit in a different space. The mobility, adaptability to find the way to be against or compromise with this identity/ ego of the artist is the key factor to formulate this art space.
Curator Nguyễn Anh Tuấn
Source: Hanoi Grapevine
