A Group Exhibition: ‘WITHIN / BETWEEN / BENEATH / UPON’ – The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre

The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre

Mar 13 - Jun 06, 2021

^{All images courtesy of The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre}

‘Within / Between / Beneath / Upon’ focuses on the art of sculpture by three internationally acclaimed Vietnamese artists Lê Hiền Minh, Richard Streitmatter-Trần and Thảo Nguyên Phan (with a special display dedicated to the late Modernist sculptor Điềm Phùng Thị). Coming from diverse media backgrounds (Hiền Minh originally in lacquer, Richard in new media and Thảo Nguyên in painting), each of these artists has gone on to experiment with varying methods and materials, committed to reflecting the perspectives of their local contexts, evident in their subject matters and materials with which they work.

‘Within’, ‘between’, ‘beneath’, ‘upon’ are concepts of place and time that not only tell us where something or someone is located, but also influences the direction of our gaze. Thus, the gallery space of this exhibition, and the accompanying display strategies of the selected artwork, have been designed to enhance our local audience experience, to further expand their understanding of sculpture today. 

In Vietnam, contemporary art is not taught within its university curricula. Sculpture is thus generally still associated with religious statues in temples and pagodas (a form of folk art that is deeply integrated into the spiritual life of local Vietnamese people); as grand political monuments that are socialist realist in style, that continue to be erected throughout the country as reminders of power and control; or as outdoor decoration whereby ‘form’ precedes any purpose or content, and is often a replication of an ‘international’ style (with rarely an acknowledgment or intention). These examples recall sculptural forms where composition, style, shape, material and colour are of primary concern, when art was approached classically and formally, and not considered a cross-disciplinary, conceptually-driven, comparative practice. 

This exhibition thus investigates influence — be it personal histories (of family and travel), collective legacies (found in architectural design and religious monuments), or interdisciplinary reciprocity (of methodology and knowledge from different disciplines) — aspiring to show how Lê Hiền Minh, Richard Streitmatter-Trần and Thảo Nguyên Phan understand and enrich the practice, meaning and value of sculpture today.

In this exhibition, sculptural installations are elevated to emphasize the distance of social inequality; some lie closely to the floor to accentuate the weight of history; while others invite us to look intimately into the layers of materials and forms. Lê Hiền Minh playfully challenges our collective understanding of monumentality and femininity, mounting larger-than-life structures in Dó paper, where magnificent figures of goddesses from multiple indigenous beliefs are amalgamated with home appliances – provoking, while also acknowledging, the strength of women in their seeming invisibility. Inspired by different periods of art history, techniques and cultures, Richard Streitmatter-Trần assembles industrial and ephemeral materials (such as steel, concrete, rice paper and moss) into hybridized forms that float, lie still or hang in the balance between the elements – defying the assumption of permanence in materiality and its determination of an artwork’s final form and meaning. Thảo Nguyên Phan’s preoccupation with historical artefacts and various folk tales invites the inclusion of work by the late renowned Vietnamese modernist artist Điềm Phùng Thị, whose unique geometric stone sculptures and fabric collages inspire Thảo Nguyên to create her own response (of wood, lacquer and paint), continuing to re-narrate and employ the complex and often contested oral and recorded history of Vietnam. 

Borrowed things, others found
　　　Dislocated narratives, others joined
　　　　　　Covered surfaces, others laid bare. 
　　　　　　　　　Recognizable forms, others defamiliarized
　　　　　　　　　　　　Man-made shapes, others crafted by nature
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Traditional materials, others unconventional

* The Factory would like to extend special thanks to Mr Phan Đình Hối for his generous lending of artwork by Điềm Phùng Thị for this exhibition.

About artists and curators

Lê Hiền Minh (b. 1979, Vietnam) studied traditional Lacquer at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Art and acquired a degree in Fine Art from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, USA. She is known to persistently employ a Vietnamese traditional handmade paper called Dó, with which she constructs large scale installations. In her work, Dó paper is visibly vulnerable to the effects of weathering and human treatment. Materiality, whether on the point of dematerialization or materialization, is central. It is a manifestation of an idea that all things are impermanent. Additionally, Lê Hiền Minh’s work also acts as a bridge between contemporary and traditional Vietnamese art and also between modern and historical Vietnamese culture. Her works have been exhibited in major museums and galleries in Vietnam as well as in Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Finland and the USA since 2003.

Richard Streitmatter-Trần (b. 1972, Vietnam) is an artist based in Ho Chi Minh City. Orphaned shortly after birth in Bien Hoa , he was adopted by an American family and raised and educated in the United States before relocating to Vietnam in 2003 after art school. While his background and education focused on an immaterial arts practice in performance art and new media, over the years he has transitioned largely to a studio based material practice focusing largely on sculpture, installation and painting. As an artist based in Vietnam for the last 17 years, outside of his studio art work production, he has also contributed to Vietnam’s contemporary arts development through curatorial and arts criticism projects, running Dia Projects – an arts organization founded in 2010, and education. While his production has always been based in Vietnam, most of the exhibition of his work has been outside of the country. He is currently represented by de Sarthe Gallery in Hong Kong and Vin Gallery in Ho Chi Minh City. 

Trained as a painter, Thảo Nguyên Phan (b. 1987, Vietnam) is a multimedia artist whose practice encompasses video, painting and installation. Drawing from literature, philosophy and daily life, Phan observes ambiguous issues in social conventions and history. She started working in film when she began her MFA in Chicago. Phan exhibits internationally, with solo and group exhibitions including WIELS (Brussels, 2020), Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai, 2019); Lyon Biennale (Lyon, 2019); Sharjah Biennial (Sharjah Art Foundation, 2019); Gemäldegalerie (Berlin, 2018); Dhaka Art Summit (2018); Para Site (Hong Kong, 2018); Factory Contemporary Art Centre (Ho Chi Minh City, 2017); Nha San Collective (Hanoi, 2017); and Bétonsalon (Paris, 2016), among others. She was shortlisted for the 2019 Hugo Boss Asia Art Award. In addition to her work as a multimedia artist, she is co-founder of the collective Art Labor, which explores cross disciplinary practices and develops art projects that benefit the local community. Thao Nguyen Phan is expanding her ‘theatrical fields’, including what she calls performance gesture and moving images. Phan is a 2016-2017 Rolex Protégée, mentored by internationally acclaimed, New York-based, performance and video artist, Joan Jonas.

Điềm Phùng Thị (1920 - 2002 ), whose maiden name is Phùng Thị Cúc, is considered one of the masters of Vietnamese modern art. In 1946, she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Dentistry from Hanoi Medical University, and then served for two years in the resistance war (First Indochina War), against the French. In 1948, history books share that due to a major illness, she was sent to France for medical treatment, where she continued to study and eventually graduated in 1954 with a PhD in Dental Surgery in France with a Doctoral thesis on Vietnam’s ‘betel chewing custom’. It was not until 1959 that she also began practicing and studying sculpture, under the renowned sculptor Antoniucci Volti. In 1966, she had her first exhibition in France at Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris. From then on, until she returned to Vietnam in 1992, she organized exhibitions across Europe of her work (and several internationally), with her artworks consequently acquired by many international collections. Her sculptural language is said to have reached its peak  in artistic maturity and excellency for her invention of what came to be referred to as her ‘seven modules’, through which she created many artworks from a wide range of materials (paintings, reliefs, statues) and for which she was also best known. Her first exhibition held in Vietnam took place in 1978, at the Hanoi Fine Arts Association (now referred as the Exhibition House, Hanoi), and is arguably considered as one of the first abstract exhibitions in Vietnam. Before her death, Điềm Phùng Thị donated approximately 175 of her artworks to Hue City, which are honored and kept on display today, at a small museum named after her Điềm Phùng Thị Art Center (Hue  Museum of Fine Art) in Hue.

Bill Nguyễn (b. 1988, Vietnam) is an artist-curator interested in researching and developing an alternative, locally-driven method and platform for curation in Vietnam. Currently Curatorial Assistant at The Factory, Bill is also the co-founder and co-curator of Manzi (Hanoi) and previously guest curator of Nhà Sàn Collective (Hanoi). Select recent projects include: ‘We’re in this together’ - a ‘Pollination’ project (co-curated with Grace Samboh), The Factory, Ho Chi Minh City (2018), ’Spirit of Friendship’ (co-curated with Zoe Butt & Lê Thiên Bảo), The Factory, Ho Chi Minh City (2017), ‘0395A.ĐC: A solo exhibition by Ly Hoàng Ly’, The Factory, Ho Chi Minh City (2017), ’Skylines With Flying People 3′, Nhà Sàn Collective, Hanoi (2016); ‘Into Thin Air’, Manzi, Hanoi (2016). He is an alumnus of the 8th Berlin Biennial Young Curators Workshop, and the CuratorsLAB initiated by the Goethe Institut South East Asia.

Vân Đỗ (b. 1995, Vietnam) is a curator and writer. After 23 years of living and working in Hanoi, in 2019 she moved to Saigon to curatorially assist The Factory. A graduate of Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanities, she is intellectually indebted to alternative platforms such as Understanding Vietnam Forum, Autumn School of Development, and Critical & Cultural Theories, among others. When in Hanoi, she has worked with art spaces such as Hanoi Doclab and DomDom and the Institute for Studies of Society, Economy and Environment (iSEE); while producing short films on the side. Her recent projects and collaborations include: ‘Broken Relationships’ (2019); ‘Gạo’ by Mắt Trần Ensemble (2019); ‘Tướng đổi thế rời ‘(2019); ‘Epsilon Runner’ (directed by Siu Pham, 2019); ‘Even fall’ (directed by Tạ Minh Đức, 2019); ‘Hanoi New Music Festival 2018’; ‘Film no. 3’ (directed by Tạ Minh Đức, 2018); ‘Hanoi Docfest’ 2017.

The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre (‘The Factory’) is the first purpose-built space for showcas