Exhibition

This Particular Day of June explores the genre of self-portraiture in relation to time, featuring three artists known for a conceptual approach to their work, and strong interest in language and seriality.

New York artist Alejandro Cesarco presents The Ramones (An Autobiography) (2008), a text work featuring a song list, organized in chronological order, of every Ramones song that begins with the pronoun I, revealing a hidden narrative expressed by the legendary punk ensemble. In this chronological form, viewers are left to form relationships between the stark and economic titles, which at times seem to flow as a logical statement (I Just Want To Have Something To Do, I Wanted Everything) and at other times seem contradictory or non-sequential (I Won’t Let It Happen, I Can’t Control Myself; I’m Affected, I Can’t Make It On Time).

Germaine Koh’s Self-portrait is an ongoing project started in 1994. The work exists as a single oil painting that she updates periodically. Painting directly over the previous image, Koh creates a new image each time, while recording the painting’s history through photographs displayed next to the painting on a clipboard. Both modest in scale and monumental in time, the work undoes itself with each progressive gesture.

Micah Lexier’s Self Portrait as a wall divided proportionally between this black type representing life lived and the remaining white space representing life to come, based on statistical life expectancy is likewise ongoing, first exhibited in 1998. The text that comprises work itself is sized differently each time it is installed, as determined by the physical dimensions of the gallery space. Contrary to expectation, the ratio between the black text and the white wall do not change but rather continue to reflect the age of the artist at the time the work was first conceived.

While works in the exhibition contrast in scale and material, the conceptual similarities between them resonate within contemporary art practices that often privilege serial forms of production over the making of a unique object while simultaneously disrupting traditional expectations of self-portraiture.

This exhibition is made possible with the generous additional support of Emily Carr University of Art & Design and the Kelowna Art Gallery. Special thanks to Carlos Mendes, David MacWilliam, Liz Wylie and Sarah Campbell.

Exhibition

Or/Belkin Satellite
555 Hamilton Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 2R1
604 687 3174 | Hours: Wed to Sun 12 to 5 p.m.

Opening reception, Saturday, April 19, 8 to 10 pm

Everything Is Not Lost features the work of Christian Nguyen, Nhan Duc Nguyen, Pipo Nguyen-duy, and Khanh Vo, four contemporary artists who address themes of family, loss, and the intricacies of memory. These artists interpret the thirty-year influence of the Vietnam War through autobiographical experiences, narratives, and postmemories. Working in a variety of mediums, these four artists confront the socio-political and emotional complexities of warfare and the events that consequently define who they are today.

These artists unravel generational memories in an attempt to form an understanding of their own disrupted sense of historical continuity. By compiling fragments of public, collective, and personal memory, the artists formulate a new narrative unique to the Vietnamese diasporic condition.

Christian Nguyen is a New York-based artist whose work examines how images, upon entering public consciousness, are connected to a specific time and can expire. In his series of drawings, Nguyen uses iconic images of the Vietnam War that are engrained in public memory but evacuates them of human presence.

Nhan Duc Nguyen compiles interviews with Vietnamese restaurateurs and restaurant employees in Vancouver, discussing topics that range from favourite foods and their careers in the food and service industry to their experiences as boat people. Nguyen’s work composes the story of the Vietnamese in Vancouver through the rise of its cuisine. A portion of his installation will be exhibited off-site at the Le Do Vietnamese Restaurant.

Pipo Nguyen-duy’s photographic work analyzes cultural displacement within the contexts of immigration and emigration. He investigates the liminal space that exists between Vietnam and the United States. Nguyen-duy’s current work draws inspiration from traditional landscape painting and his memories of childhood in Vietnam during the war. He currently resides in Ashland, Oregon.

Khanh Vo’s installation is an exploration of sociological time that references both the past and future of Vietnamese refugees in America. In his work, the New York-based Vo considers the idea of the “refugee space”, a concept he created to consider the displacement experienced by the Vietnamese in America.

Everything Is Not Lost looks into the profound relationship the artists have to a Vietnam they may have little or no recollection of. While an apparent cultural connection fuels the artists to directly engage with remembrances of the War, their work argues that the memory of Vietnam belongs to us all in varying ways, regardless of personal associations.

This exhibition is curated by Kim Nguyen, a candidate to the Master’s Degree in Critical and Curatorial studies at The University of British Columbia.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Alvin Balkind Fund for Student Curatorial Initiatives, the Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory, and the Faculty of Arts at The University of British Columbia.

A portion of Nhan Duc Nguyen’s installation will be exhibited at the Le Do Vietnamese Restaurant:
2292 East Hastings St.
Vancouver, B.C.
V5L 1V4
Ph: 604.253.3508