How to make art with someone else’s artist books
- cnualart
- Apr 12, 2011
- 3 min read
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Vietnam was the first country chosen for the daring initiative made possible by the Hong Kong based Asian Art Archive. A selection of the archive’s art books, magazines and catalogues arrived in San Art gallery, Ho Chi Minh City, to be edited by the public, before moving on to other Asian countries for more people to explore the interventions, and add their own.
This interactive proposition may smack of relational art theories, or remind one of Hans Ulrich Obrist’s loan for the Interarchive exhibition, but is actually founded on the ancient Chinese tradition of literati, whereby a painting is not the work of a single individual, rather, it is the work of a scholar. Collector’s seals and calligraphy poems are superimposed on the landscape painting created by the literati. Effectively, this millennia old tradition is a collaborative editing process. With this in mind, publications on contemporary Asian art were given to the people, as a potentially risky, potentially enriching, tactic for engendering collaborative editing.
The exhibition opened in February 2011, and I went to have a play. A few fun hours later I’d produced a number of interventions that intersected existing drawings in my sketchbook with images I found in the books. Tran Minh Duc’s art mural based on maps of HCMC had not taken off yet, but maps and location seemed to be the dominant ideas for me too, helped by fate, recent life anecdotes, and by meeting some architecture students there. See photos of my ‘editions’ on the left.
Lena Bui, also artist in residence, discussed with me her insightful ideas on the conflict of powerful family traditions versus the desire for independence –and a sex-life- amongst young people in Vietnam. Her slashed and embroidered canvases are cuttingly open about the social dynamics at battle.
A week or so later, I embarked on an educational project, collaborating with an international school and the gallery. Imparting ideas of ripping up books with young children, in a country rife with breaches of copyright, may be a risk, but the challenge held great promise. A small group of children enjoyed the laid-back space and comfy cushions, and created their own versions of images in the books, some of which were assembled into a book that was left on site. Tran Minh Duc, artist in residence, was working on his wall installation inspired by maps of HCMC. In turn, this inspired little Lucio to create a floor installation, complete with train tracks and vehicles. Art is ageless.
Evening events during the duration of the exhibition gathered HCMC art-lovers for more art and ideas sharing. Artist Tammy Nguyen, who the gallery had invited for an editing process of the book ‘A History of Art in 20th Century China’ in collaboration with a writer, involved the public in responding to images from the archive displayed on a big screen. Drawings circulated and were re-edited several times before coming together as pages in a collective book.
The project now moves on. San Art held a closing party this weekend, and Susanna and Linda from the Asian Art Archive collected impressions and feedback, and the edited books, in preparation for the next city that will develop the process. The final hours of Open Edit in HCMC were as alive with ideas as when the initiative opened, but with many ‘edits’ scarred across the pages. Ironically, the closing party was itself edited by government censors, who prohibited a DJ from playing and prevented any improvisations during an artist’s performance. Just before leaving, I was leafing through a book on Ai Weiwei, marred with poignant interventions (I later found out they were cut by artist To Lan Nguyen). We hope the Chinese government opens it’s ‘editorial’ censorship on the living artist.
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