Fight or Flight or Float or Fall: Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Upcoming exhibition
Overview
Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Frontier, 2024
Galerie Quynh is pleased to present Fight or Flight or Float or Fall — a solo exhibition of new work by Tuan Andrew Nguyen. Spanning four exhibition rooms, this experimental body of work focuses on sculptural installations that bring together some of Nguyen’s ongoing research around historical memory, material memory, and strategies of resistance often related to how memory is retained.
Movement is an intrinsic part of the works. Visitors enter the exhibition through a volume of 37 bamboo curtains amplifying the resonance of its hollow stems; air moves around a room gently swaying resting dragonflies balanced on stupa-like pedestals made from UXO (unexploded ordnance); a motor spins a bamboo curtain pole depicting some of history’s most consequential figures; layered bamboo curtains shimmer like watery surfaces as one navigates the works.
Nguyen’s objects are made with materials that contain inherent contradictions. The extraordinary images he highlights also seem to be in conflict with each other, battling for primacy.
The exhibition’s title suggests a call to action — a fight for survival. Throughout the show, images and objects that speak to violence, destruction and trauma are intertwined with empathy, harmony and healing.
