Tuan Andrew Nguyen

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Tuan Andrew Nguyen
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Alma materUniversity of California, Irvine
Occupation
  • Vietnamese-American Artist
  • Filmmaker

Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn is a Vietnamese-American artist and filmmaker. Through his sculptures and moving image works, Nguyễn continues to explore the relationship between narrative and materiality, stories and objects, memory, trauma, healing and the potential for storytelling to act as forms of resistance.[1]

Biography

Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn was born in Saigon (now officially known as Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam. At the age of 2, Nguyễn and his family immigrated to the United States. They were among the many people that fled Vietnam after the Vietnam War ended in 1975. Tuan and his family moved from Oklahoma to Texas, finally settling in California in the early 1990's.

After receiving his MFA, Nguyễn returned to Vietnam. In 2006, Nguyễn co-founded The Propeller Group with Hà Thúc Phù Nam and Jason Huang, later joined by Alan Hayslip and Matt Lucero.[2] The Propeller Group was an artist collective that operated simultaneously as an advertising agency/film production company, producing commercial work as well as video art for other contemporary artists.[3]

One of their most highlight works, Television Commercial for Communism (TVCC), explores the contemporary approach to rebrand and commercialize the ideology of communism in the post–Cold War era, while collaborating with TBWA/Vietnam, an actual advertising agency in Vietnam.[4] The project was exhibited at Guggenheim Museum in February 2013 [5] and received substantial international attention.[6]

In 2007, Tuan co-founded Sàn Art, a non-profit artist-initiated exhibition space, along with Dinh Q. Le, Tiffany Chung, Hà Thúc Phù Nam with the aim of becoming a bridget between the local art scene and the international art world, providing space and educational resources for young Vietnamese contemporary artists.[7]

As of late 2017, Hà Thúc Phù Nam and Matt Lucero were no longer active members of The Propeller Group, having withdrawn to pursue more personal interests.[3] The Propeller Group continues to operate as a platform for collective thinking and coordinated action.[8] Nguyễn remains the only founding member that manages and coordinates these collaborative projects under the group moniker. In 2017, Nguyễn began turning his focus on his own practice.

Education

Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of California, Irvine in 1999.[9] He studied under the likes of professors Daniel Joseph Martinez, Yong Soon Min, Ulysses Jenkins, Catherine Opie, Trần Thị Kim Trang, Connie Samaras, Andrea Bowers, Anne Walsh and others. Daniel Joseph Martinez also had a significant impact on Nguyễn during his time there.[10]

Nguyễn also got a minor in digital art, which led him to work as a graphic designer for a few years before applying for a Master of Fine Arts in CalArts, which he completed in 2004.[9] There he had studied with Charles Gaines, Michael Asher, Martin Kersels, Jessica Bronson, Shirley Tse, Eungie Joo, Superflex, amongst others.

Themes & Selected Work

Nguyễn’s recent projects largely focus on the traumas and aftershocks of colonialism and migration. They are based on extensive research, engaging in communities, and activating counter-memory as forms of political resistance. Nguyễn extracts and re-works dominant, oftentimes colonial histories and and weaves them with speculative elements into imaginative vignettes. Fact and fiction are interwoven in poetic narratives that span time and place.[9]

In a featured article on Art in America, Lisa Tan wrote: “While there can be a certain melancholy among diasporic artists grasping at generalized ideas of a motherland, Nguyen circumvents that disappointment by rooting his work in specific histories that he rigorously researches in order to make room for poetry.” [11]

In an interview with Nguyễn for Mousse Magazine, Rahel Aima also commented: “Like his family, who fled Vietnam during the war, many of Nguyen’s films feature people who are unmoored from their own countries and spend their lives in either perpetual motion or interminable limbo.” [12]

The Island (2017)

The Island is set in a post-apocalyptic future on Bidong island. The film tells the story of the last man on earth, who escaped forced repatriation to Vietnam, meets a United Nations scientist who has washed ashore after the world’s last nuclear battle. Woven with archival footage of Bidong history, the film questions the individual’s relationship to history, trauma, nationhood, and displacement.

The film was shot entirely on Pulau Bidong, the island off the coast of Malaysia where Nguyễn and his family inhabited along with 250,000 other refugees. Bidong island became the largest and longest-operating refugee camp after the Vietnam War.[13]

“The Island highlights the challenges of isolation, repercussions of state-enforced relocation, and the fundamental tension between remembering and honoring past trauma while not undermining the possibilities of a distinct future.” — Matthew Hills, Curator/Director, Grenfell Art Gallery [14]

“[...] the film lyrically displaces the anxieties and investments of the present with a sweeping cinematic vision that, like the waters surrounding the titular land-mass, both envelopes and rejects; transports and entraps; brings home, and sets adrift.” — The Mistake Room [15]

Ever since its premiere, the work has been screened widely, but one of the most highlighting screening events took place in the Dakar Biennale of African Contemporary Art in summer 2022 [16], with the presence of some of the featured Senegalese-Vietnamese descendants.[17]

The Boat People (2020)

Set in Bataan, Philippines, The Boat People revolves around a group of children who call themselves “the boat people,” referring to the term describing refugees who fled Vietnam following the end of the American war in Vietnam in 1975.

Led by a young girl, who we learn is the last woman on earth, the children search, collect and create wooden replicas of the objects left over from the ruins of human civilization, in order to learn stories of their ancestors. Eventually, they burn the wooden objects and release their ashes into the ocean. When the girl encounters the severed head of a Quan Yin statue on the beach, they discuss death, intergenerational knowledge, the afterlife, and more.[18]

“The time of the story is the time of extinction and a time of becoming. I found this incongruous juxtaposition very striking in The Boat People [...] The figures of the children wandering, gathering, making replicas and burning them give us another way to imagine the duration of extinction, as still, and yet, the duration of life.” — May Adadol Ingawanij, Vdrome [19]

The Unburied Sounds of a Troubled Horizon (2022)

The Unburied Sound of a Troubled Horizon follows a woman named Nguyệt, who runs a scrapyard in the coastal province of Quảng Trị, an area where the ground is seeded with unexploded bombs and land mines from the American war in Vietnam. Nguyet’s younger brother was killed by a cluster bomb fragment, and she copes with her own crippling PTSD by making abstract, Alexander Calder-style mobiles from salvaged bomb metal.

The film slowly reveals art to be her salvation. Through a Buddhist monk, she learns to tune the mobiles to healing frequencies. And through her metal-casting skills, Nguyệt creates prosthetic limbs for a young man who was brutally disfigured by the same explosion that killed her brother.[20]

“[The film] suggests that, as both narrative and object, art can be an instrument of healing that aids in the processing of unfathomable loss.” — Murtaza Vali, Artforum [21]

“[The film] is far more nuanced and surprising than my description suggests… This spring, New York City is rich in full-length videos… and Nguyen’s is one of the best.” — Holland Cotter, New York Times [22]

Publications

Many of Nguyễn’s works have been featured in academic publications. Art historian Brianne Cohen did an analysis on My Ailing Beliefs Can Cure Your Wretched Desires (2017) in her journal article, Visualizing Animal Trauma and Empty Forest Syndrome in the Moving Imagery of Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn, issued and published by Art Journal.[23]

The Specter of Ancestors Becoming is discussed in Zoe Butt and Lee-Weng Choy’s published journal article, We Are Not the Stories We Tell Ourselves: Weaving Differing Registers of Memory in the Arts, by The American Historical Review.[24] It is also mentioned in Caroline Ha Thuc’s book Research-Based Art Practices in Southeast Asia, published by Palgrave Macmillan Cham on “how [history] can be remembered, is thus induced by its poetic form yet structured by its realistic and documentary dimension.” [25]

Nguyễn is also working on a publication for his upcoming museum solo with the New Museum, coming out June 2023 [26], and a publication centered around the research and community in The Specter of Ancestors Becoming.

Selected Exhibitions & Screenings

Selected group exhibitions include:

Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum, NYC, NY (2017)

After Darkness: Southeast Asian Art in the Wake of History, Asia Society, NYC, NY (2017)

Islands, Constellations, and Galapagos, Yokohama Triennial, Yokohama, Japan (2017)

Leaving the Echo Chamber, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (2019)

Homeworks, Beirut Biennial, Beirut, Lebanon (2019) [9]

Soft Power, SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA, USA (2019)

14th Biennale de Dakar, Dakar, Senegal (2022) [27]

STILL ALIVE, Aichi Triennale, Aichi Prefecture, Japan (2022)

Present! Still, The 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2022)

Selected solo exhibitions include:

Quiet Shiny Words, Gallery Quynh, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam (2008)

Empty Forest, The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam (2017)

From Saigon to Saigon, Asia Society, New York, NY (2018)

A Lotus in a Sea of Fire, James Cohan, New York, NY (2020)

A Dream Of The End At The End Of A Dream: Tuan Andrew Nguyen and Wowy, Galerie Quynh, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (2021)

Unburied Sounds, James Cohan, New York, NY

All That We Are Is What We Hold In Our Outstretched Hands Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, United Kingdom

It Was What Is Will Be Marabouparken Konsthall, Sundbyberg, Sweden

Honors

Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn is a recipient of awards including Artmatters Grant (2010), Cornerstone of the Arts Award (2018), and VietFilmFest’s Best Feature Film for The Island (2019). The Propeller Group is also granted with accolades including Creative Capital Award (2012) for Television Commercial for Communism and Grand Prize at Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur (2015) for the film The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music. [9]

References

  1. ↑ "ArtAsiaPacific: Tuan Andrew Nguyen: A Voice from the Silence". artasiapacific.com. Retrieved 2023-03-07.
  2. ↑ Rose, Frank (2016-04-21). "The Propeller Group Brings a Phantasmagorical Vietnam to James Cohan". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Rose, Frank (2018-02-23). "Is It an Art Collective or a Vietnamese Ad Agency? Yes and Yes". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-03-07.
  4. ↑ "Television Commercial for Communism". The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  5. ↑ "Television Commercial for Communism". The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  6. ↑ Davis, Ben (2019-12-27). "The 100 Works of Art That Defined the Decade, Ranked: Part 1". Artnet News. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  7. ↑ "Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn – Sàn Art". Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  8. ↑ "Shift Key: Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn". Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto. Retrieved 2023-03-31.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 "Tuan Andrew Nguyen - Artists - James Cohan". www.jamescohan.com. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  10. ↑ "ArtAsiaPacific: ONE ON ONE: Tuan Andrew Nguyen on Daniel Joseph Martinez". artasiapacific.com. Retrieved 2023-04-15.
  11. ↑ Tan, Lumi (2023-03-17). "In the Studio: Tuan Andrew Nguyen's Pointed and Poetic Forms of Storytelling". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  12. ↑ "At the Edge Of: Tuan Andrew Nguyen — Mousse Magazine and Publishing". www.moussemagazine.it. 2020-10-13. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  13. ↑ tuanandrewnguyen.com. "The Island". Tuan Andrew Nguyen. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  14. ↑ "THE ISLAND: TUAN ANDREW NGUYEN". Grenfell Art Gallery. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  15. ↑ "THE ISLAND: TUAN ANDREW NGUYEN". Grenfell Art Gallery. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  16. ↑ Linh, Do Tuong. "Đỗ Tường Linh's highlights of 2022". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  17. ↑ Mitter, Siddhartha (2022-06-15). "In Dakar, African Art Speaks in All Its Voices". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  18. ↑ Wong, Harley (2020-04-08). "Tuan Andrew Nguyen's Mystical Art Brings People In Touch With Lost Ancestors". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  19. ↑ "Vdrome". Vdrome. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  20. ↑ Heinrich, Will; Steinhauer, Jillian; Schwendener, Martha; Lakin, Max; Vincler, John; Cotter, Holland; Smith, Roberta; D’Souza, Aruna (2022-04-06). "Art We Saw This Spring". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  21. ↑ Vali, Murtaza. "Murtaza Vali on Tuan Andrew Nguyen". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  22. ↑ Heinrich, Will; Steinhauer, Jillian; Schwendener, Martha; Lakin, Max; Vincler, John; Cotter, Holland; Smith, Roberta; D’Souza, Aruna (2022-04-06). "Art We Saw This Spring". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  23. ↑ Cohen, Brianne (2022-10-02). "Visualizing Animal Trauma and Empty Forest Syndrome in the Moving Imagery of Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn". Art Journal. 81 (4): 44–61. doi:10.1080/00043249.2022.2133300. ISSN 0004-3249.
  24. ↑ "The American Historical Review". academic.oup.com. doi:10.1093/ahr/rhac295. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  25. ↑ Research-Based Art Practices in Southeast Asia. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-09581-8#affiliations.
  26. ↑ "Tuan Andrew Nguyen: Radiant Remembrance". www.newmuseum.org. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  27. ↑ GRIOT (2022-06-04). "Dakar Biennale | Tuan Andrew Nguyen Memorializes the Vietnamese-Senegalese Community". GRIOT. Retrieved 2023-04-11.

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