EVERLASTING KARAOKE Minh Ngoc Nguyen 30.03 – 05.05.2023

past exhibition

30 Mar

Announcement

Oblong is excited to present Everlasting Karaoke, a solo exhibition of new work by Minh Ngoc Nguyen (b.1992), a Danish-Vietnamese artist currently based in Copenhagen.

Oblong and Everlasting Karaoke are supported by Statens Kunstfond.

Curator: Jonathan Lieb

Graphic Design: Ray Weng

Related Programming

Opening on Thursday 30th March, 17:00–21:00

Minh Ngoc Nguyen in conversation with Pam Van Delyra on Thursday 4th May at 19.00

Exhibition Statement

Taking his Vietnamese heritage as a starting point, Nguyen examines Western portrayals of South-East Asian culture. Through deconstructing and reconstituting specific objects and iconography, he questions their appropriation and reclaims them from the fetishisation to which they have become prone. His visual style borrows heavily from commercial photography; a studio-lit aesthetic that embellishes the fetishisation and falseness he wishes to critique.

Everlasting Karaoke is a natural progression from the body of work begun in Nguyen’s debut photobook Sour Sun. The vibrant still-life tableaus and motifs he created for the book are still evident, yet the approach and subject matter have become more personal as Nguyen draws from his own experiences. The introduction of people into some of the image-making brings a more clear human presence to his hyperreal universe.

Everlasting Karaoke is at once playful and demanding; a visual lexicon used to probe and question the viewer. Are we perhaps too accustomed to attributing particular tropes to broader cultural groups, leaving no space for nuance or greater understanding?

Vignettes of performative actions and activities – origami, stacking Pokémon cards – highlight the conflicts second and later-generation immigrants can have in relation to one side of their own cultural heritage. Elements of a culture that are able to generate a sense of connection and pride, while simultaneously acting as signifiers of otherness that can be used to caricature.

Karaoke itself is central to the exhibition; an appropriated global phenomenon that is at once loved and fetishised. This duality has led Nguyen to have a deeply conflicted relationship with karaoke, coming to symbolise the performative aspect necessary for assimilation to be achieved. As Everlasting Karaoke demonstrates, this performance becomes continuous, lifelong, everlasting.

Artist

Minh Ngoc Nguyen (b. 1992) holds an MFA in Photography from the Valand Academy, Gothenburg. His work has been shown internationally in various group and solo exhibitions. He recently published his first photobook Sour Sun, through Norwegian publisher Heavy Books.