Events > Online talk

28 Sep. 2021

Fogo Island Arts & Art Metropole present: Schools of Thought, an online talk by Minh Nguyen

Speaker
Minh Nguyen
Time
6PM EDT

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Fogo Island Arts (FIA) and Art Metropole present Schools of Thought, a talk by Islands Writing Residency recipient and forthcoming artist-in-residence, Minh Nguyen. Schools of Thought will be the inaugural presentation in FIA’s Lost & Found Agency online talk series.

Though the latter half of the 20th century saw a shift from the object to idea in art across the globe, the dematerialization of art in socialist and “post-socialist” contexts reveal particular social tensions, including struggles against state power. Taking Vietnam—and the burst of experimental practices that followed the 1986 Đổi Mới “socialist-oriented market economy” reforms—as departure point, this talk examines the possibilities and limitations of conceptual art wielded as a covert form of free speech, in contexts where free speech’s recognizable forms have been suppressed. This talk also considers the influence of the communist imaginary, on artists responding to their countries’ communist heritage, and on avant-garde art movements more broadly.


Minh Nguyen is a writer and organizer of exhibitions and programs. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Art in America, ArtAsiaPacific, frieze, and Momus, and most recently she curated what flies but never lands? at Chicago Cultural Center. She is an editor at Pioneer Works and a visiting scholar at New York University through the A/P/A Institute. Minh is currently at work on a book on socialist and communitarian aesthetics, forthcoming with Art Metropole.
Image

Trần Minh Đức, Đếm Sao / Counting Stars - Văn Chung, choreographed performance at Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, 2019. Image courtesy of the artist.

  1. Counting Stars - Văn Chung