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Danh Vo

The Mudam Collection and Pinault Collection in dialogue

Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean and Pinault Collection are delighted to announce their collaboration which will offer the public greater insight into their contemporary art collections. A first presentation will be displayed in Mudam’s Sculpture Garden, from 20 April to 25 August 2019, with a selection of emblematic works by the Danish-Vietnamese artist Danh Vo from Pinault Collection.

Suzanne Cotter, director of Mudam, expressed her enthusiasm for the project: “Mudam is delighted with the collaboration with Pinault Collection, which is undoubtedly one of the most important collections of contemporary art in Europe. Thanks to this dynamic and intellectually generous conversation, Mudam will be able to offer its many visitors a broader context in which to appreciate the works of some of the most signifiant artists of today, and offer an ambitious vision of what a contemporary art collection might be.”

This conversation between the two collections is the result of close consultation with Danh Vo and Caroline Bourgeois, curator of Pinault Collection. The director general of Pinault Collection, Jean-Jacques Aillagon stated: “I am delighted that Pinault Collection and the Mudam, an institution for which I have the greatest respect, are engaging in a cooperative venture which I hope will be longlasting and fruitful. My links with and memories of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg go back a long way, a further reason to take pleasure in this joint initiative, to which Mr François Pinault also wishes to lend his personal support.”

Biography

Born in 1975 in Bà Ria, Vietnam lives and work in Mexico DF, Mexico.

Danh Vo examines how cultural values, conflicts and traumas are constructed and inherited through work inspired both by his own experiences as well as historical and political events. When he was a child, Võ’s family fled Vietnam and settled in Denmark. His family’s assimilation to European culture and the political events that precipitated their flight from Vietnam are intertwined in his artistic practice; Võ’s work illuminates the interwoven strands of private experience and collective history that shape our sense of self. Using both historically rich readymade objects and personal details that directly and indirectly touch on his own life experiences, Võ examines the larger implications how meaning changes with context, as well as how objects accumulate symbolic weight. Vo's work is both enigmatic and poetic, deftly avoiding didacticism as he explores the power structures underlying liberal societies, the fragility of the nation-state, and the way objects retain or absorb the sublimated desire and sadness of individuals and entire cultures. Emerging from a process of research, chance encounters, and delicate personal negotiations, Vo's installations unearth the latent undertones and memories embedded in familiar forms.

Danh Vo studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark and the Städelschule, Frankfurt. In 2012 he was the winner of the Hugo Boss Prize, New York; the BlauOrange Kunstpreis der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken in Berlin, Germany in 2007. In 2015 Danh Vo work’s was present in Venice at the Danish Pavilion of the 56th Biennale. The same year, he curated Pinault Collection’s exhibition Slip of the Tongue at the Punta della Dogana.

His work has also been exhibited in many collective exhibitions. In 2013, his work was shown as part of the exhibition Image papillon at Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, which explored the complex relations between image and memory.

Text : Gallery Chantal Crousel, Paris (www.crousel.com)

Credits