untitled
——a brief introduction
Danh Vo’s life’s journey has given him a broad range of experiences to draw on as he examines questions of significance and purpose. In the process, the artist has continuously explored how the practice of contemporary art can elucidate the relationship between art and life.
I always say that I can deal with my life and the circumstances of my life, the political, social circumstances of my life at this moment. And, it’s true. I can look at it through the history that has impacted me, like the Vietnam War, or the American War of Independence or whatever. But I think what has always comforted me beyond all that is that you can think in geological time. It comforts me because then you always think, “OK, everything is going to disappear anyhow.” And that’s why I think stones or rocks are such a fantastic material. It’s geological time, it’s beyond ourselves, so I can only look at it aesthetically, which is comforting.
In a recent interview, Danh Vo discussed his interest in the notion of “geological time,” in contrast to the scale of biological time on which we humans live. The contrast between these two concepts of time provides us with an entry point for this project. Three works featured here—untitled (2021), Untitled (2020), and Untitled (2012-2022)—together hint at the relationship between ideology, craft, and the changes over time in art mediums. They represent a richly significant journey through time, from the Roman Empire to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—the rise of “Modernity”—and on to the present.
The forms of these objects and their particular materiality derive from the combination of the collective consciousness of different periods of time and the changes in techniques that took place amid them. Ideological evolution (from ancient Roman religion, Christianity, and humanism to colonialism and capitalism) is deeply imbedded in the formal characteristics of these sculptures. Intriguingly, over the course of two millennia, the materials available to artists have grown evermore light, from marble to wood to inexpensive cardboard. Thus do we enter into a labyrinth of time and space, seeking direction amid the complex relationships that humans have constructed between bodies and ideas, ideologies and techniques.
In The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism (1904-1905), the theorist Max Weber posited a tight, nuanced web of connections between the evolving spirit of modern Western Capitalism and the reform and evolution of religion. In the essay “Capitalism as Religion” (1921), Walter Benjamin pointed out that “one can behold in capitalism a religion, that is to say, capitalism essentially serves to satisfy the same worries, anguish, and disquiet formerly answered by so-called religion.” In Untitled (2020), we see how belief gradually merges into commodity fetishism. Following the emergence of international maritime shipping, containers like these wooden Johnnie Walker whiskey boxes have become increasingly important, and the religious concept lives on only in a quaint representation of the leftover body of an angel compressed in the box. The artwork thus reflects a moment of historical transition: human bodies are released from their role as instruments of religion, instead becoming targets of commodification. Such commodification of human life is an ever more ubiquitous phenomenon; the natural resources that support human life are a salient example of this process, as captured by the sculpture Untitled (2012-2022).
To Danh Vo, the most shareable public space is in fact located within each individual’s physical body. When these three sculptures are considered together, Danh Vo’s artistic practice draws us in with powerful momentum, forming an expanding field and a distinctive public space that invites us to contemplate, confront, and explore the hidden dimensions of our lives. If each unique individual is able to grasp some of the various aspects of this invitation, then we are all able to glimpse the artist’s distinctive vision of the meaning of freedom.
(Text: Vitamin Creative Space)
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Vitamin Creative Space at S.E.A. Focus 2023: a world, anew
Danh Vo: untitled
Vernissage (by invitation only)
Thursday, 5 Jan, 2023, 6pm to 9pm
VIP Hour
Friday, 6 Jan, 2023, to Sunday, 15 Jan, 2023, 12pm to 1pm
Public Days
Friday, 6 Jan, 2023, to Sunday, 15 Jan, 2023, 1pm to 8pm
Venue
Tanjong Pagar Distripark, 39 Keppel Rd, Singapore 089065
S.E.A. Focus is proud to introduce another highlight in this edition – a curated area for collaborative projects and experimental art installations. Serving as a breeding ground that welcomes institutional and cross-industry collaborations to empower artists and galleries in realising bolder and larger-scale works, this aims to open up new possibilities, ignite and invigorate the art community at large.
Visitors entering a world, anew will find a series of works by Vietnamese-born Danish contemporary artist Danh Vo, from Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou, realized with the support of M Art Foundation, an artist-driven organisation founded to support the pursuits and practices of contemporary artists. Danh Vo’s works invite us to enter a maze of time and space, seeking direction amid the complex o’s works invite us to enter a maze of time and space, seeking direction amid the complex relationships that humans have constructed between bodies and ideas, ideologies and techniques.
For more information, please visit
https://seafocus.sg/
This project is co-organized with M Art Foundation.