Making the "Security Booth" - 2016

- Ngày xửa ngày xưa, có người lính làm nhiệm vụ canh cổng. Anh này luôn hoàn thành nhiệm vụ xuất sắc và luôn được khen ngợi từ cấp trên. Anh rất tự hào với thành tích đó của mình và nhất định duy trì niềm tự hào đó mãi mãi.

Sau nhiều năm, ông sinh sống, ăn, ngủ, tắm, giặt... mà vẫn không rời vị trí, không bỏ nhiệm vụ. Niềm tự hào càng ngày càng cao ngất!

Sau khi qua đời, cụ vẫn thường xuyên làm nhiệm vụ tại vị trí đó và sẽ không bao giờ rời đi vì 2 chữ "TỰ HÀO"

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Once upon a time, there was a soldier on duty at the gate. He has always completed his duties excellently and is often praised by his superiors. He was very proud of his achievement and determined to maintain that pride forever.

After many years, he lived, ate, slept, bathed, washed... but still did not leave his position, did not give up his duties. The pride is getting higher and higher!

After his death, he still regularly works at that position and will never leave because of the words "Pride".

2016 - Off Road

Material: Ready made Russian car UAZ469, resin, metal, industrial paints

Dimenssion: 185 x 385 x 310 cm

No matter their appearance every individual human has at least two versions of their identity within him or her. The better you get to know them the greater your understanding of them becomes. This creates and ever lasting conflict between our body, mind and soul. Our body reactions are slower than our thoughts and each part of the body moves and functions differently. When our brain directs our body to focus on doing something, each part of the body contributes to the work with their particular purpose. That is simply how a human works.

But let us imagine what happens when many of these humans come together as a society made up by a staggering amount of individuals who each come with their unique set of cells, heartbeats, souls, ideologies and perspectives. This work is inspired by the hardship we encounter when we work together, when we try to persuade a crowd, when we run in a group.

Using metaphorical satire I unite individual elements in a way that renders their cooperation impossible to highlight the striking contrast between them.

Con người chúng ta có bề ngoài tưởng như cân đối, nhưng thực chất 2 nửa hoàn toàn khác nhau. Càng đi sâu vào trong ta càng thấy sự khác nhau rõ rệt.

Vì chúng ta được tạo nên bởi những yếu tố khác nhau đó nên tự thân mình đã sẵn có những mâu thuẫn: những vận động sinh học của cơ thể luôn chậm hơn suy nghĩ, mỗi bộ phận lại vận động một cách thức khác và với tính chất khác.

Khi bộ óc bắt các bộ phận khác của cơ thể tập trung làm một công việc nào đó thì mỗi một bộ phận sẽ đóng góp theo tính năng riêng của mình chứ không phải đóng góp như nhau. Nhìn rộng ra một tập thể nhiều người, tôi nhận thấy các cá thể trong đó không chỉ khác nhau về tế bào, nhjp tim, linh hồn mà còn cả tư tưởng, quan niệm...

Tác phẩm này lấy cảm hứng từ sự khó khăn khi chúng ta làm việc nhóm, khi chúng ta thuyết phục đám đông, khi chúng ta điều hành một tập thể… Bằng hình thức ẩn dụ hài hước, tôi lắp ghép các “cá thể” này với nhau một cách phi lý nhằm tạo nên sự tương phản rõ rệt.

2013 - One Planet - solo exhibition @ Galerie Quynh

One Planet is my first solo exhibition in Ho Chi Minh city. In this show, i present the transformation of the ideas from 2D works to 3D installations.
One Planet is generously supported by the Danish Embassy in Hanoi's Cultural Development and Exchange Fund (CDEF).


 Go To Market
materials: wood, plastic fruits, nylon bags, metal, cotton.
dimensions: w:60cm - h:200cm - d:400cm

Nguyen Manh Hung's work is inspired by his experiences and observation of Vietnamese life. In "Go To Market", a jet plane hutles trhough the ground floor gallery, transformed from hi-tech war machine to scaled-down and meticulously constructed sculpture, at onece playful and harmless.
Betraying the artist's long-held fascination with militaristic images - his father was a fighter jet pilot - the surreal scene of fighter plane carrying nylon bags laden with shopping goods humorously morphs a symbol of destruction with conduits of hope, benevolence and joy.
(statement by Galerie Quynh)
   
Keep My Planet Clean
materials: clay, fabric, metal, resin, plant-derived roots, plastic, acrylic paint.
dimensions: w:140cm - h:100cm - d:70cm

"Keep My Planet Clean" is a small diorama have been transformed from a painting i've made in 2012. With image of riot police torturing a pig, i would like to present a humorous situation about violence, there are including both brutality and stupidity.
   
The Barricade
Materials: wood, paper, plastic, metal, nylon, LED lighting system, sawdust, canvas bags, sand.
Dimensions: w: 430cm - h: 220cm - d: 120cm

In the difficult time of the subsidized economy, a standard apartment is assigned to 2 or 3 families. They have to negotiate about dividing space to live together. If this family get bathroom then they have to cede the kitchen to other family, and sharing the toilet.
With cramped living conditions, lack of water, difficult economic… these families often have to expand the living space with the cage, self equipped with water pump and pipes, livestock poultry in the apartments to improve their life… Those are major factors that alter the shape and structure of the building as well as affect the habits and lifestyle of people.
Life in these buildings isn't life of the people in urban areas, but in the village. A high-rise village.
The history of Vietnam goes through the wars and who suffer the consequences of the bombing is the people of Vietnam.
In this work, i use the images that associated with Vietnamese such as apartment blocks and barricade to combine in one installation. It aims to present a perspective about war in the language of art.
   
I've Been Here
Materials: oil on readymade painting
Dimensions: 109cm x 178.7cm

Hanoi's cottage landscape painting industry serves as a platform to present the intersection of given realities with false, utopian panoramas. Often depicting romantic, imaginary sceneries comprised of snow-peaked mountain ranges, pristine rivers and lush pine forests, these fanciful worlds serves as rural setting for the artist's reality check, authoritarian figurenavigates his grassy path like a cop on patrol.
"I've Been Here" forms part of a series of paintings the artist refers to as 'Mauvais Gout', which literally translate as 'bad taste'. Not only does the readymade painting - the mass-produced kitsch landscape painting - indicate a misguided aesthetic, so too the gold frame accentuates the brash presentation of the artwork. Given the presence of the security personnel strolling through the scene, the overall effect mirrors the tactless self-assertion of individuals who mismanage their positions of power.
 

QAGOMA TV

There is an interview on the website of Queensland Art Gallery. It made in 2012 November during my set up.
Click this to see video ---> QAGOMA TV

Living Together In Paradise - Diorama

"LIVING TOGETHER IN PARADISE"





I was born and raised in an apartment block in the capital Hanoi. With over 20 years experiences of living in there, I found it does not take much of urban life but rather is a complex area "village" stacked on top of each other.

It is self-improvement of living space, farming, growing vegetables and upgrade living conditions in the prevailing promiscuous.
There are people share everything and not much about privacy, confidentiality.
I questioning myself: "Do angels could live together in a paradise?"

3 dimentions works

Milk bottles: wood, iron, stone - 18cm high
I copy from the real milk bottle to 3 different materials (Wood, Metal, Stone), with the live size scale.




Trousers and shirts: 30 military uniforms, resin.
i collected 30 military uniforms from farmers, workers,.. (i even bought or exchanged to get them) in some locations in the northern of Vietnam. I put them into clear plastic liquid and they became hard like sculptures.
This is my first solo exhibition at Nhasan Studio - Hanoi - Vietnam.








Vinawind: 30 electric fans.
I borrowed more than 30 fans from many famylies, friends.. and put them into a room and let them run as they can. this work concern to the way Vietnamese behave together.
Goethe Institute Hanoi - Vietnam 2003 October.








color pencil: wood, paints - 30cm x 30cm x 200cm (each piece).
I bought 3 collums of a wooden house and divided them to 6 pieces of color - pencils.
i gave them negative names (red for green, yellow for blue..). This works has shown at Goethe Institute Hanoi - Vietnam 2004 October.






conductor: found stuffs, TV, Camcorder, guitare amp, microphone, ladder, pumper, buddha statue...and one person.
All these stuffs are have inputs and outputs, and also are conductor wires. People also have the same functions also have inputs and outputs and people is Conductor too.
if you know what is my inputs and what is my outputs, you will know how i am.












Flight: bamboo, paper, cloth, glue. 20m x 9m x 7m
My father was a fighting pilot, for Vietnamese Army. Bradford’s father was a fighting pilot too (American Air Force). Both of us have memories with fighting jet’s images.
Bradford and I want to build a model of a fighting jet with a form has been mixed from two different types of Jets: Mig 21 and F4 Phantom. Both types of these jets used to belong to contrary forces, and now when we have no more war, we would like to heal these contrary factors become one.
All the conflicts and violence are appear from the mis-understanding, art helps us (Bradford and i) to understand each other. The present is demonstrating this understanding by our common works.
As a gift of the present to the past and say “NO” to war and violence, we wanted to burn this model of jet at the opening.













Apartment block's model