Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba – one of my favorites
One art pieces that I really love is by the artist Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba.
I saw some of his work on Malmö Konsthall in Sweden 2005.
“Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba is a Vietnam-based artist who works with film, photography, conceptual objects and installations. In a long series of works he has used Vietnam’s complex history as a starting point and created “alternative histories” and “memorial projects”. Since 2001 he has produced a series of four films recorded in water.”
/ Malmö Konsthal - http://www.konsthall.malmo.se/
The films show different things, all under water. In one of them you see young men struggling with getting their bike taxis (and if I remember also wheelchairs further and further out into the sea, dragging them along the sea floor. In another of the films white “tents” are set up on the sea floor. In yet another balls of colour are realized from a “machine” places on the sea floor whilst a huge asian dragon is moveing around in the water above.
The films are totally capturing. It is something with this pointless struggle in the films that is so beautiful, and bizarre. Also the total tranquility is amazing.
I later read that the film title, In Memorial Project Nha Trang, Vietnam: Towards the Complex – For the Courageous, the Curious and the Cowards, was a tribute to the millions of boat people who entrusted their fate to the waves, and that Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba wanted to show the suffering and struggle for survival which has plagued the Vietnamese people both during and after the war with the United States.
I personally like the work better without that explanation. It is truly beautiful in itself.
In class I also mentioned Wanås sculpturepark (http://www.wanas.se/). Kind of crappy webpage but fantastic park with works by Dan Graham, Jenny Holzer, Charlotte Gyllenhammar and many more.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:25 pm
http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/junnguyenhatsushiba/
I found a few excerpts of his work online and now I am so curious to see it exhibited. I loved the twirling shadow theater (I used to know the name for the device, but I forgot it… i’m sure I’ll wake up in the middle of the night from the memory of the name). Really interesting and beautiful work. Thanks Anna.