Parties Inaliénables, a sculpture work at the Cernuschi Museum Paris
In Absence Presence exhibition at Nguyen Art Foundation, HCMC
This fall, I will be participating with two works Palimpsest and Inalienable parts in this show curated by Bill Nguyen at the Nguyen Art Foundation.
Curatorial essay from Bill Nguyen
Featuring artists Oanh Phi Phi, Nguyen Thuy Hang, Linh San and Lena Bui, In absence, presence is a group exhibition that explores the affective qualities and sensorial sensitivities of artistic materials, and how processes of material transformation may, in turn, affect the way artworks are perceived and experienced. Through innovative acts of material manipulation and technical experimentation, the participating artists engage their chosen mediums and subjects in a committed process of mutation, expansion and cultivation, seeing matters and ideas as living entities with whom they converse and collaborate in an act of co-creation.
Moving back and forth between what-is-no-longer and what-is-yet-to-come, between the visible and that which escapes first glances, the artworks in this exhibition deviate from the situated norm and escape immediate contextualization by way of material intervention, visual illusion and sensorial enhancement. Paintings are thickened and dissected, translucently hanging mid-air and inviting human touch. Sculptures sweat, break and wither, consumed by the elements and, at times, by violent forces. Words are written then erased, burnt then crystalized, immortalized into whispers and melodies that traverse through spaces. No longer representational, these artworks live. No longer static, these artworks breathe. No longer silent, these artwork gesture. In their quiet solitude, they patiently wait – ever seeking, ever waiting – for the eyes that understand.
Because the eyes behold what the skin brushes,
the skin unveils what the ears await,
the ears discern what the tongue touches,
the tongue caresses what the nose attends,
and the nose breathes in what the eyes witness,
the viewer is invited to step beyond the confines of logic and into the depths of their senses, to embrace the artworks with all the rawness that nature bestows. No longer mechanical, their body is now a conduit for the flow of emotions to take them back to a place of primal instincts and recollections. Rather than dismissing the importance of the intellectual pathways that knowledge and learning offer, this exhibition prompts pondering: What revelations await when we choose – even if only for a moment – to set aside the constraints of context and reason, and allow ourselves to encounter art – first and foremost – through the prism of our physical body, sensitive emotions, lived memories and unconditional imagination?
In the press
Many thanks to SEA Focus for the following interview and feature story!
In the Press
Palimpsest at Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennial 2024
Thank you so much Ute Meta Bauer and Ana Salazar Herrera for inviting Palimpsest: A Light Exists in Spring to be part of this.
The second edition of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, titled After Rain, opened to the public on February 20.
After Rain brings together artists of diverse backgrounds who investigate the relationship between humans and nature, examine the built environment, observe and interact with the landscapes that surround us, recount histories, and encourage us to listen more closely. Conceived as a vibrant entity rather than a static framework, the Biennale’s multi-format platforms consist of an exhibition, the Biennale Encounters series of public programs, a film program, performances, research projects, and dialogues.
Palimpsest at the 2024 Diriyah Contemporary Arts Biennale. Photos courtesy of Chris Yeo Siew Hua
2024 SAM S.E.A. Focus Art Fund
I am honored that my work was selected for the 2024 SAM S.E.A. Focus Art Fund. Established in 2023, this fund recognizes iconic works of contemporary Southeast Asian art by facilitating their entry into the Singapore Art Museum’s collection.
This initiative is made possible with the generous support from the Yenn and Alan Lo Foundation. The panel of jury comprised Guest Juror, Ms Mami Kataoka (Director, Mori Art Museum), Dr Eugene Tan (Director, Singapore Art Museum), and Ms Ong Puay Khim (Deputy Director, Collections and Public Art, Singapore Art Museum).
𝗣𝗵𝗶 𝗣𝗵𝗶 𝗢𝗮𝗻𝗵 | FOST Gallery
(left to right): Pro Se – Vivarium Air 2, Pro Se – Composition 2, Pro Se – Vivarium Air 1, Pro Se – Composition 1 (2023)
Sơn ta (Vietnamese natural lacquer) with gold, silver, aluminum metals and stone pigments on wood
TAASA Review Vietnam issue edited by Mai Nguyen-Long
TAASA Review’s VIETNAM issue, Volume 32 No. 4, is now hot off the press with Mai Nguyen-Long as Guest Editor. Thank you to Abigail Bernal for the mention in the Vietnam in the Asia Pacific Triennial article.
Cover image: Fissio 2021 (installation view), Phi Phi Oanh, United States/Vietnam, lacquer on wood, purchased 2021 with funds from Tim Fairfax AC through the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art Foundation Collection: QAGOMA Photo: Natasha Harth. See pp 4-6 in this issue.
Photo Courtesy of QAGOMA, Photo: Natasha Harth
TAASA Review, The Journal of the Asian Arts Society of Australia, is a quarterly journal available to all members of TAASA. You can join TAASA via the TAASA website (www.taasa.org.au) or you can buy this issue for $10 plus postage by contacting TAASA at editorial@taasa.org.au.
Palimpsest in the Kadist Foundation, San Francisco
An Exploration of Lacquer
Phi Phi Oanh’s (@oanhphiphi) Lacquerscope 1 and 2 (Palimpsest A-F series)’ (2011-2015) comprises a series of pictorial installations exploring the haptic process of lacquer. Through Lacquerscope, her custom-made lacquer projection machines, Oanh dematerializes lacquer images, projecting them as shadows on suspended screens. This approach challenges traditional definitions, questioning the boundaries between painting and photography. Oanh’s unique methodology considers lacquer as a sculptural and conceptual form, celebrating its breathing body and the interplay of light and movement.
The work is on view at KADIST San Francisco through February 17 as part of ‘de montañas submarinas el fuego hace islas’ curated by Yina Jiménez Suriel
Lacquer as Sudarium Article
Thank you to the Nguyen Art Foundation for this write up and especially to Carmen Cortizas for her profound attention.
See this link for download https://bit.ly/3PFZ6ca
Black Box at The Outpost, Hanoi
I am currently participating in a group show at The Outpost Contemporary Art Center, Hanoi. The work is from Black Box, my first work in Vietnamese lacquer installation. STRATUM ZERO is the first of many exhibitions that will showcase the private collection of The Outpost. If you are in Hà Nội please check it out.
Photos courtesy of Dương Mạnh Hùng.
Pro Se series at A2Z Gallery, Paris
The exhibition V.I.E... with more than 35 artworks on display at A2Z Art Gallery, Saint-Germain des Prés, Paris, curated by Lê Thiên Bảo, depicts part of the ongoing art scene in Vietnam in this decade. Most of the works borrow the shape of familiar still-lifes to anchor the history flow. The exhibition space is arranged with the intimacy of a house, where artistic work coexists with everyday life.
Photo courtesy of A2Z Gallery, Paris
Arca Noa, a small solo exhibition in Hanoi
Vivarium at VCCA
FISSIO AT THE 10TH ASIA PACIFIC TRIENNIAL OF CONTEMPORARY ART (APT10)
FISSIO AT (APT10)
From the Queensland Art Museum: “For this landmark tenth edition, QAGOMA’s Asia Pacific Triennial looks to the future of art and the world we inhabit together. It’s rich with stories of how to navigate through time and space, reimagine histories and explore connections to culture and place.
‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10) includes 69 projects with new and recent work by emerging and established artists and collectives, together comprising more than 150 individuals from 30 countries. It includes works of art that are by turn highly personal, deeply political, and full of joy.
Including major new and recently commissioned works, APT involves a great depth of research by the Gallery’s in-house curators working collaboratively with a network of artists across wide and diverse geographies from Australia and the Asia Pacific region.”
Fissio installed at the Queensland Art Gallery
At the Fost Gallery, Singapore
Until the 25th of August 2019.
Interface (‘Giao diện’) at the Factory Contemporary Art Space, Ho Chi Minh City
15 Nguyễn Ư Dĩ, Thảo Điền Ward, District 2, HCMC
www.factoryartscentre.com
The Factory Press Release:
In the work of Oanh Phi Phi, lacquer is a material of not only physical, but also visceral density.
In ‘Interface’ we present two of her major pictorial installations – Specula, an immersive lacquered tunnel akin to stepping in to a glowing womb; and Palimpsest, which personifies tools of producing images (where projections magnifying glass paintings recall the lens structure of a human eye). What is most dazzling about these two ‘paintings as sculptures’ in this exhibition is the suggestion that these artworks are analogous to organs of a body, indeed their ‘shape’, their ‘skin’, their ‘interface’ infers protection, purpose and ultimately, an identity.
Just as a human organ is constantly processing substance, similarly these sculptural installations are also constantly processing its environment. With Specula the viewer is encouraged to tread lightly on its glass floor to get closer to its lacquered shimmering walls and ceiling; while with Palimpsest the viewer may peer closer at the glass ‘microscopic’ slides (glass paintings) that small projectors then magnify large on the adjacent wall.
The art of Oanh Phi Phi is primarily a relationship between sơn mài (lacquer), light and movement. Thus an audience is required, for according to the artist, in order for the artwork to be truly activated, it is the viewer’s presence (thus causing shadows and interruptions with light) that lends a constantly changing reality to the colors that refract from its layered lacquer depths.
Oanh Phi Phi was trained as an oil painter. She fell in awe with lacquer as a student and has, over the past 15 years, developed an internationally acclaimed artistic practice that bemoans the historical and theoretical deferral of ‘lacquer’ to the discipline of painting; while also insisting arguments of lacquer as ‘craft’ are in need of re-assessment.
‘I try to create work that proposes to break apart those categories so eventually, we might be able to say that lacquer is its own genre, that it has something to say about how images are formed and thus has grounds to exist beyond current debated discipline. I relate to lacquer as a medium of ‘newness’, a material with deep haptic qualities, in synergy with the contemporary digital world of multiple dimension and sensorial light refractions’.
Whilst critically respectful of the history of lacquer, which remains a celebrated national art form in Vietnam today, Oanh Phi Phi seeks to challenge the assumption of form, capacity and definition of this medium, preferring to argue its immersive (as opposed to optical /decorative) powers.
‘Interface’ is the artist’s first solo show in Ho Chi Minh City. This exhibition will be on view until 21 July, 2019.
Nhân dịp triển lãm ‘Giao diện’ (Interface) của tôi tại Factory Saigon, hai cuộc phỏng vấn:
Conversations program
I will also be participating in the Art Basel Hong Kong Conversations program on Saturday, March 30 from 5:00-6:30pm “Telling Stories, Narrative Forms and Strategies” in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Auditorium on level 1, Room N101B
Please see the link for more information:
https://www.artbasel.com/events/detail/8615/Telling-Stories-Narrative-Forms-and-Strategies?fbclid=IwAR2xNKSfvU1I5TUeFSajKfCylEozp3LIRkHKIfiOxsUalAcH1ZzeSEHu8Qs
Fost Gallery at Art Basel Hong Kong 2019
I will be showing work at Art Basel Hong Kong this year. Please come by Fost Gallery (booth 3C35) in the Insights Gallery area. Hope to see you!
Private View will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, March 27–28, 2019, and the show will open to the public from Friday to Sunday, March 29–31, 2019
