| Time | Tuesday, September 6 · 6:30pm - 9:30pm | |
|---|---|---|
| Location |
Ga 0 (ZeroStation), cư xá 288 Nam Kì Khởi Nghĩa, p.8, q.3, HCMC
288 Nam Ki Khoi Nghia str., ward 8, district 3
HCMC
| |
In her book, “Photographs as contemporary art”, published in 2004, Charlotte Cotton wrote:” we are living in an amazing age for photography when the art world is more and more including photography in an extraordinary way and when the photographers consider naturally galleries or art book their home…”
However, it seem that not until now we know the critical power of photography. On 1935, in an essay that was not only important for photography and cinema’s history in particular, but for art history in general, “ the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction”, Walter Benjamin had championed photography. This theorist thought that it is characteristics of being reproduced multiple times of photography thanks to mechanical process that makes photography the art of a new age because with this characteristics, the critical value of photography will be heightened much more than purely artistic value of all types of pre-photographic art such as painting or sculpture.
It is its critical value that makes photography very important, if not most important instrument for contemporary art. However may we make clear shortly of the term “critical” here. Critique is etymologically originated from three Greek terms: Kritikos (ability of diserning); kritēs (ability of judment); and krīnein (ability of analyzing). For this reason, the critique’s original meaning is not an activity of making negative comment toward an object as being understood popularly in Vietnam now. Essentially speaking, critique [kritiko,kritēs,krīnein] is a highly self-reflexive labour and activity and it is only in this meaning of “critical” that photography can be considered the most important domain for contemporary art practice
And for photography practice, seen from practical perspective, being critical also means being conceptual.
So what is conceptual photography?
This time ZeroStation would like to invite you guys to participate in a presentation on “conceptual photography” by photographer Ngo Dinh Truc, one of very few Vietnamese photographers working with photography in conceptual way. In his presentation, Ngo Dinh Truc will both introduce theoretically and historically on conceptual photography and illustrate his introduction by one of his own conceptual work, “The idle talks”.
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Below is the text on Ngo Dinh Truc’s “idle talks”, quoted from the essay “ redefining the past and transforming public space, two strategies of Vietnamese artists in the new millennium” by Nhu Huy, which was given at the symposium Post Doi-Moi, Vietnamese Art After 1990, organized by Singapore art museum in 2008, and later was published in the book “ collection essays on modern and contemporary Vietnamese art”, Singapore art museum, 2009
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Unlike Le Thi Viet Ha’s intimate approach to the past, Ngo Dinh Truc’s concern about the past through the work “Idle Talk” is shown by the use of famous old images of Sai Gon, edited by using Photoshop to insert his own comments – seemingly an excuse for the artist to question human beings’ apparent present consensus definitions about the past.
The past here, through the form of old pictures printed together with the artist’s comment, is no longer a silent and closed entity that is separated and well-defined. Because of the suddenly opened gap between the comments on the picture and the picture itself, that past was re-awakened and became an open source of thinking, putting forth many questions for the viewers.
We can take the 5th picture in Ngo Dinh Truc’s “Idle Talk” picture series as an example. This is a very famous picture that captures a historical moment in modern Vietnamese history. It was the moment when the T54 tank ran down the iron gate of Independence Palace – the symbol of Sai Gon Government’s authority. This picture has become a representation of collective awareness of the majority of the Vietnamese of an incident that changed the country’s destiny.
However, the national broadcasting agency recently did a documentary on this incident. The tank in the picture, together with its driver, who later became a national hero, was not the first tank that entered Independence Palace. Another tank, with another driver was actually the first to enter Independence Palace. Despite that, this picture still became the official symbol for that historical moment as it was deeply inscribed in the collective awareness through textbooks and other media ever since. The artist’s comments on the picture mention this incident.
Behind the artist’s comments, another question was raised, a question on the gap between the two types of past: the collective consensus past, represented by the cliché, one-dimensional images constructed and existed ignorantly in the present public’s subconscious, and the past that re-entered the awareness and thoughts through the redefining act of each individual and became an unresolved sentiment.
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