Contemporary Vietnamese Artists Collaborate on Cadavre Exquis Video Series

M.Y. ART PROSPECTS presents the new exhibition entitled CE/VN, featuring a unique collaborative exquisite corpse video series by Vietnam-based artists. Curated by New York – and Los Angeles – based Kóan Jeff Baysa with his co-curator in Hanoi, Hoa Nguyen, the exhibition is based on the cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse), the surrealist game of chance and surprise, in which several components are created by separate artists, then brought together to form a single entity.

Traditionally involving poetry and drawing, this exhibition extends the game’s medium to photography and video, for which these artists are now sourcing images from the internet, pop culture, as well as their own studio production.

Participating artists include Phan Le Chung, Nguyen Ban Ga, Nguyen Huong Giang, Hoa Nguyen, Nguyen Tran Nam, and Van Hoai Nguyen. In addition, Nguyen Manh Hung and Tran Luong in Hanoi and Bao Ngoc Nguyen in Ho Chi Minh City participated as advisors to the project.

Most of these artists, born between late 1970s to mid 1980s, also part of the Vietnamese IT industry which has high hopes of competing with the likes of other small countries with emerging high technology communities. The rewarding result of this project is the motivating of artist communities in Vietnam through the collaboration of a number of creative minds working in harmony on a single project. They have shown their work in the same group shows (see their biographies below).

This cadavre exquis exhibition (CE/VN) consists of three components: a large projection of images, an installation of 3 stacked monitors with compiled mutating images, and a single monitor showing a looped DVD of assembled images.

Deploying a relatively new art medium that is challenging, educational, and spectacular, CE/VN is an exciting voice from a dynamically developing country that has relatively little recognition in the contemporary global art world. CE/VN will also be presented as our participation in Asian Contemporary Art Week, the city-wide celebration of Asian art from March 16 to 24