“‘History,’ Stephen said, ‘is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.’”
James Joyce, Ulysses, Episode 2.
Museum Mile, late winter, 2018. Guggenheim Museum ahead on the right. Click any Photo for full size.
A typewriter sits almost alone on the floor of a gallery on the Guggenheim Museum’s 5th floor.
I stood opposite it for a few minutes over multiple visits, considering the installation of this gallery and watching other visitors pass by.
Only a few stopped to read the wall card, above it to the right. For those that didn’t, I couldn’t help wonder what they were thinking. “A typewriter? What? Why? Is this “Art?”
The wall card.
A few days later, about 50 blocks south, I saw another typewriter sitting alone on display.
Tennessee Williams’ Olivetti Typewriter seen at Tennessee Williams: No Refuge but Writing, at The Morgan Library, April, 2018.
This one was one of the great Tennessee Willams’ two most cherished possessions, along with a copy of Hart Crane’s Poems. A typewriter can be a weapon of murder, of Art, and now in both cases, an “Art object,” with completely opposite impacts. At the Guggenheim, Danh Vo’s placing of the Unabomber’s typewriter, (with it’s keyboard turned towards the side, and so, not an invitation to the viewer to use it, but to look at it as an object), is rife with irony, and very subtle power. Seeing both machines reminded me that a typewriter is a typewriter is a typewriter- it’s the person using it that makes it a tool for timeless beauty, or for catastrophic destruction.
Therein lies the crux of Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away, which fills Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic rotunda. Along with Art that he (or his calligrapher father) makes by hand, to a large extent Danh Vo’s Art relies on carefully selected actual historical items who’s significance fit the three primary threads that run through his Art- the history of Vietnam (dating back to it’s colonial past), American history, and his personal & family history. The Artist chooses objects for their ongoing power to speak to us through the history they witnessed or participated in. They are now mute witnesses, but like possessions in one’s home, their sum a portrait of where the Artist “lives,” so to speak. Combined, and seen over a large show, these three histories (Vietnamese, American and personal) interweave and dialogue with each other. The national and global becomes personal. For viewers, they are pieces of histories that speak to us still, like events that happened before our birth are “pieces” that have real and lasting effects on our lives many years after.
Then, I moved to the right, and saw what was installed along the intervening gallery wall in the next gallery.
On the wall behind the Unablomber’s Typewriter, left, is part of We The People, 2011-16, Copper, right. Installed (ironically, or coincidentally) so they mirror each other.
It’s a work called We The People,. Well, it’s part of the work called We The People, which totals over 300 pieces in all, each one part of a full size replica of the Statue of Liberty!
Every American “knows” the Statue of Liberty. How many would recognize one of her hands if seen by itself? The front of her left hand, minus her thumb (which is lying on the floor just behind me).
Vo’s parents idolized the U.S. as a land of political freedom and economic power, values their son couldn’t help but pick up, though later he suffered from disenchantment. Danh Vo was inspired after finally visiting the Statue in person to have it painstakingly replicated in copper. Press two pennies together between your fingers. That’s how thick the skin is on both sculptures! He and his team used the same techniques used to craft the original (though in China, instead of France), each of it’s 300 body fragment parts serving as both a reminder of the whole and an autonomous sculpture on it’s own. “In taking the Statue of Liberty as subject, Vo appropriated the definitive symbol of not just America but of the abstract notion of freedom itself. The metaphoric fracturing of the American body politic in the literal body of Liberty not only suggests the fragility of the philosophy she enshrines, it also enacts a profound violence on the fabric of the national consciousness1.” In the catalog for the show, curator Katherine Brinson speaks of the damage to the American psyche that would be done seeing the actual Statue in pieces, referring to nerve the 1986 campaign to restore the Statue struck in the American public. Showing a replica of it is brings none of that trauma and instead allows the viewer to see it anew.
“I thought it would be interesting to make something that people felt so familiar with, in all the different ways that people project on the sculpture, and try to destabilize your own thinking of it,” the Artist said in 2013.
From the start, Danh Vo never intended to assemble the pieces he made, but rather to distribute them around the world, so it’s effect would be international, allowing no single person or entity to own more than 8 pieces of it. While about 50 parts of We The People, were previously seen locally in a 2014 Public Art Fund show in Brooklyn Bridge Park and City Hall Park, having seen only 6 pieces of it I still found it utterly remarkable- A remarkable concept. Remarkable that someone could do it and do it so well. Remarkable that he or she would choose to recreate all of it and not assemble it. Remarkable that this Artist, Danh Vo, is not now and has never been, an American2.
Two pieces from We The People,, another view of the works seen adjacent to the gallery with Kaczyinski’s Typewriter.
Danh Vo (pronounced yon voh) was born in Ba Rja, Vietnam, 4 months after the Vietnam War ended. Nonetheless, as it does with countless others in innumerable ways, the War casts it’s long shadow over Danh Vo’s life and Art, directly and indirectly. As seen in Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away, the War, which ended 43 years ago this April 30th, occupies the center, a defining event in his life though he wasn’t even alive during it. After he was born, his family was among 20,000 resettled to Phu Quoc in far southwest Vietnam, and then to Ho Chi Minh City, as part of a government “reeducation” program. In 1979, when Vo was 4, his family fled Vietnam in a homemade boat with 117 others, and were rescued at sea by a Danish freighter.
After escaping Vietnam in a homemade boat and being rescued at sea, Vo, age 4, left, and his family were taken to a refugee camp in Singapore. Having left everything behind, they were gifted the items seen in this Photo by Christian missionaries, which the Artist has turned into a “Christmas card” long after the fact. “Untitled,” 2007, Photogravure.
After a winter in a camp in Singapore, the family was eventually resettled in Denmark, where Vo was raised. Today he lives in Berlin and Mexico City. “I don’t really believe in my own story, not as a singular thing, anyway. It weaves in and out of other people’s private stories of local history and geopolitical history. I see myself, like any other person, as a container that has inherited these infinite traces of history without inheriting any direction. I try to compensate for this, I’m trying to make sense of it and give it a direction for myself,” the Artist has said3.
Two pieces of “We The People-
In 2012, he won the Hugo Boss Prize, which resulted in his first show at the Guggenheim Museum, the remarkable I.M.U.U.R.2, (I am you and you are too), which consisted of about 4,000 Artworks and items that belonged to the late Painter, Martin Wong. It says quite a bit that Danh Vo would take his first opportunity of a show in one of NYC’s “Big Five” Museums and devote it to the work of another Artist. Martin Wong is someone who’s work Danh Vo has championed, as he owns at least one his Paintings. In that sense, it’s part of the thread of his personal history that his work continues to explore. It was also a unique opportunity to walk around in the mind and life of the late Artist while it created an effect not unlike one of Martin Wong’s Paintings. It also served to expose visitors (including myself) to the work of a terrific Painter, who died in 1999 at age 53. (For further information, I recommend “Martin Wong: Human Instamatic,” which was produced for a 2016 Bronx Museum of Arts show.)
Another piece of We The People, one of the last pieces fabricated. The hand that holds the tablet.
The exhibition catalog for Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away
Untitled, 2018. Adds “Fabulous Muscles” to the show’s title, Take My Breath Away, yes, the theme from the 1980’s film “Top Gun,” was etched on the glass window in the Museum’s rotunda floor by the Artist’s father, Phung Vo. It was almost impossible to get a full shot of it. This was as close as I got over innumerable attempts.
As for Take My Breath Away, it’s rare (and wonderful, I find) to walk into a large show and almost all of it feels “different,” unlike almost anything I’ve seen before. A classic case of this was Matthew Barney’s The Cremaster Cycle, in 2003, also, at the Guggenheim, where almost every single object felt like it had been created by beings from another world. Danh Vo uses, mostly, recognizable objects, but he often deconstructs them or combines them in new and totally unexpected ways and then displays them brilliantly in ways that are Zen-like, daringly unexpected, and fresh.
In another gallery, a different “statue” is seen. “Oma Totem,” 2009, consists of items that belonged to the Artist’s grandmother. After deciding to emigrate to Germany in 1980, upon her arrival, she was gifted a washing machine, a television and a refrigerator, by an immigrant relief program, along with a crucifix, gifted by the Catholic Church. Vo has turned them into his work, “Oma Totem.” At the Guggenheim, it/they also sit virtually alone in a gallery, turned sideways. They’re a monument to being a refugee, of leaving one culture behind, while another now stands before you. As the wall card says, “…the sculpture reduces its subject’s harrowing experience of war and exile to the set of archetypes- refugee, convert, and consumer- that were assigned to Vo’s grandmother by her new society.”
Oma Totem, 2009, Philips television set, Gorenje washing machine, Bomann refrigerator, wooden crucifix, and personal casino entrance card, with “Uro,” 2009, Keys on a chain, behind on the wall.
Partially hidden on the wall behind them, is Uro, 2009, which consists of keys left over from a past relationship. The chain that connects them is all that remains of the connection they once shared.
“If you were to climb the Himalayas tomorrow,” 2006, Rolex watch, Dupont lighter, American military class ring. Three items his father, Phung Vo, cherished as signs of his “success” in his new country. The Artist hd to negotiate with him to get him to give these to him for this work. Displayed in a lit vitrine behind glass, like they would be in a fine jewelry store, the work’s title was taken from a Rolex ad campagin.
Beyond the image of America his parents had while he was growing up, it’s interesting how much American history is in his work. As with the typewriter seen earlier, not all of it pertains to Vietnam.
“She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene,” 2009, Brass bugle, felt cap with velvet, bayonet sheath, field radio with wood and leather case, sashes, wooden drumsticks, fife, leather sword belt with gold and silver details, and 13-star American flag. The Artist purchased this at auction, exactly as it appears now, adding only the title. It was created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It would seem to also stand for America in it’s ascendency to the country Vo’s parents idolized.
Taking his place in the now long line of Artists working with found objects, (primarily, though Danh Vo also makes Art by hand), with Marcel Duchamp appearing to be particularly inspiring for him, he brings new dimensions to this now 100 year old (at least) genre through the use of historic and personal items, his choice to disassemble them or leave them, and in the breathtaking way, in my opinion, that he installs them. .
A chandelier from the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel Majestic, Paris, where the Paris Peace Accords were signed, ending the Vietnam War.
Photo from the Exhibition Catalog, P.XXXIII
Even when these items are literally in pieces their parts are shown in surprising ways.
Untitled, 2009, Carry-on bag, fruitwood St. Joseph (Germany, late 16th century). Danh Vo acquired a wooden sculpture that was too big to transport by plane. So? He cut it into sections and put each into a bag so he could carry them on. At the Guggenheim, they were distributed, in their bags, with at least one also on a handcart.
At other times, the pieces are recombined in extraordinary new ways, as in these sculptures.
(Unpronounceable title uttered by the demon in The Exorcist), Poplar Virgin of the Annunciation, 2nd century, with Greek marble sarcophagus, ca 1350, left. Throughout the show, Vo displays sculpture that has either been broken up into parts (by the Artist or found that way), and displayed them either alone or with parts of a totally different sculpture, as seen here on the left, the lower half of which shows a lion devouring an antelope, “juxtaposing the sacred and the profane4,” though it’s also visually striking and unprecedented to my eyes, the effect only enhanced by it’s installation.
Untitled, 2018, Marble Eros (Western Europe, 2nd century CE) and sandstone eagle (Germany late 19th century). Notice the wooden shims left unpainted underneath it. Museum staff told me that the Artist stopped them from Painting them, something they would always do.
At the Guggenheim, the staff regaled me with stories of how the Artist laid out this show with almost Zen-like techniques. He left shims unpainted, chandeliers uncrated, and left other pieces where the handlers left them. I was told it was “unprecedented.”
16:32, 26.05 Late 19th-century chandelier. “Leave it just like that,” the Artist must have said to the Art handlers. Because they did. Open shipping crate on unpainted blocks and all.
I found the installation completely captivating, a model of taste and restraint, a breath of fresh air. Looking through the catalog (where those responsible for the display of the work in prior shows are not credited), I see a similar brilliance in the design of each show. Whatever one thinks of Danh Vo’s Art, he has a mastery of display that borders on showmanship.
Lady Gaga, live at Radio City Music Hall, January 20, 2010, her first major NYC Concert, in a show designed by the brilliant stage designer, Es Devlin. The stage was set inside a “frame” that goes all the way around it, with a screen in front of it that was never removed. Many of the designs for songs reminded me of Art works. It became obvious to me that either Ms. Devlin, Lady G, or both, were channeling Art history. This one, with the singer’s hair fastened to rings threaded through the pole the dancers hold on each side of her, and then moved around the stage, reminded me of Joseph Cornell.
I said “showmanship,” meant with respect, because the only other instance I can think of where I saw such amazing, beautiful display was at Lady Gaga’s first “big” NYC concert at Radio City Music Hall in January, 2010, in a show designed by the brilliant stage designer, Es Devlin5. At the time, I was completely floored by what I saw, though I immediately knew that whoever was responsible for it had gone to school on Art history. There were elements of Dali, Magritte, and especially Joseph Cornell throughout. Danh Vo, is adding display to the accomplishments of Duchamp, and Rauschenberg, making it an inherent and critical part of his Art.
Lot 20, Two Kennedy Administration Cabinet Room Chairs, 2013, right, and 08:43, 26.05, 2009, Late-19th century chandelier, left, behind Painted screen. At the Guggenheim, Danh Vo turned the museum’s “bays” into stage sets of a sort, some, like this one, behind transparent screens. Vo acquired 2 chairs from John F. Kennedy’s Administration that he proceeded to dismantle. The parts, and the fabric, are shown on their own elsewhere in the show. Here the frame of one chair is juxtaposed with parts of a chandelier, from the room the Vietnam War Paris Peace Accords were signed in a beautiful, haunting display. Like a memory, it’s both there and not there. In front of both is a thin curtain on which a beast, possibly a lion, is shown with an arrow sticking out of his shoulder. A reference to Kennedy being short down in 1963?
Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Guggenheim Museum to be seen from the top, down. He intended for viewers to take the elevator to the top and walk down the gently sloping ramp, something I always do. Yet, I have never seen a show laid out this way. Instead, each one insists visitors walk up the 6 ramps. Well, it is a small elevator. So, this gallery, above and below, was among the first I saw in this show, and created a powerful effect.
Detail showing part of the JFK Administration chair and the transparent screen in front of it.
Danh Vo is an Artist who’s also something of a cultural anthropologist, someone who’s attuned to the deeper significance of historic objects as part of history and histories. Like Ai Weiwei, he’s not bashful about deconstructing them to mine even deeper significance. It helps that he’s also blessed with a terrific sense of reconfiguring these objects and pieces of objects in stunning and fascinating installations that he varies greatly from show to show, creating unique experiences each time. Seen in pieces, they are often completely new experiences which cause the viewer to see them in new ways. From looking at the catalog’s compilation of these past shows, Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away is both a high watermark in the young Artist’s career and a “beacon” of a calling card that he is an Artist to watch. The Guggenheim took a chance with this show, and then took another chance in giving Danh Vo so much leeway in it’s installation. They, and he, have succeeded in creating a show that is rich in layers of meaning and relevance for the moment. The Guggenheim’s commitment to Danh Vo’s Art, going back to I.M.U.U.R.2, is something I believe NYC’s Big Museums should be doing, and doing more of.
At a time when the Vietnam War seems prime to slip from the consciousness of America and the world as it’s survivors age, pass on, and the world moves on, Danh Vo serves to show that the legacy of Vietnam is multi-generational in it’s effect and impact on the world. Something that is not news to anyone who was involved in it.
It also shows us that even Art can come from something so horrific. Art that has much to tell us now, lest we find our selves in another “nightmare of history” one day.
An unexpected Postscript-
It turns out that Danh Vo and I have someone in common. Or, we had.
Danh Vo speaks about his experiences with Tim Rollins at the Tim Rollins Memorial Celebration, SVA Theater, NYC, April 30, 2018, which also happened to be the 43rd Anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, on April 30, 1975.
On April 30th, I went to the Memorial Celebration at the SVA Theater on West 23rd Street for my late friend, the Artist and educator Tim Rollins. Much to my surprise, Danh Vo was there, and was one of a number of well-known Artists, and friends, who spoke about Tim Rollins during the service! He also generously donated the flowers. Sitting way in the back, in the jam packed auditorium, I was taken by a group of them to the left of the stage.
One group of flowers donated by Danh Vo at the Tim Rollins Memorial Celebration, April 30th, 2018, at the SVA Theater.
The way they were half in the light, and half in shadow perfectly summed up the experience of the evening for me. Was Danh Vo responsible for the lighting? I tend to doubt it because the lights were for what was going on onstage. Such is my respect for his installations, he had me wondering.
*- Soundtrack for this Post is “I Want To Come Home For Christmas,” by Marvin Gaye and Forest Hairston in 1972.
My thanks to Kristina Parker and May of the Guggenheim Museum.
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- Exhibition Catalog, P. XLII ↩
- As far as I know. He has lived here, though he does not now. ↩
- Exhibition Catalog, P. XXIII ↩
- Ibid P.39 ↩
- Seen in concert 6 months later, at MSG, all of the avant garde stage design had been replaced by a more traditional, over the top, arena extravaganza documented in an HBO Special. Unfortunately, as far as I know, the Es Devlin production, one of the most amazing concert productions I have ever seen, has not appeared on video. ↩