date
18 December 2015
closed
location
hồ chí minh
program
+1 contemporary project
about
“The vacant chair” is a solo exhibition of artist Bang Nhat Linh.
Bang Nhat Linh is a visual artist who is also a collector of war memorabilia. The primary concerns and inspiration for his artistic practice is human beings. This exhibition is part of Linh’s long term practice, in which, the whole process reflects “the surveys into the depths of memories, history, submerged psychological spaces, and of oblivion…”, in which “war memorabilia are taken from their original contexts to be placed within a new context, or they are positioned in a relationship with human as communicable and interactive objects…”
“The vacant chair” is a multi-layered video installation. It is an intimate narrative, whereby social issues derived from modern history of a turbulent Vietnam are unveiled: the wounds, tolerance, optimism, as well as the special relationship amongst those who remain. From a broader angle, it suggests an universal sense of existence and death, particularly the limited nature of the human race…On the other hand, through the act of transforming a powerful symbol of war into a symbol of love and loss, the work steps out of its geographical context to tell a universal story of all humanity. “The vacant chair”, therefore, is a song of humanity, and for humanity…
*“The vacant chair” is a popular song during the American Civil War written by George F. Root in 1861 based on a poem by Henry S. Washburn. The song signifies the loss and emptiness of those who lost their loved ones in the Civil War, it specially gained empathy from both the North and the South of the United States during the war.
This is version 2/2 of the artwork, currently on display in this show after exhibiting at Nha San Collective (Hanoi) in September, 2015 (curated by Le Thuan Uyen). Version 1/2 was presented in Exhibition “Mien Meo Mieng” at Builmusset, Umea, Sweden (curated by Tran Luong).
Location: 103 Dong Khoi, Dist. 1, Ho Chi Minh City
About the artist :
Bang Nhat Linh was born in 1983 in Hanoi. Linh is amongst the most talented and active artists of his generation. In 2014, he was featured, in a book that examines the Vietnamese art scene and 9 outstanding local artists born in 1980s: “Art and Talents” as “having an unique artistic identity, different from other colleagues of his generation…”.