5/18-5/26 Lê Hào Solo Exhibition AMBIGUOUS
〈Statement〉
Looking back at my paintings, I wonder what actually motivated me to create them. I have been referring to historical events as well as the people and the society that go back to the period of my maturational development to find a link between those events and myself. Since then, I found myself to be more interested in finding out events and milestones of Vietnam wars. Thanks to that, I gained a deep understanding about those wars such as the brutal nature of them resulted in innocent people lost everything they should have deserved to have.
In order to convey my points of view about the wars through the paintings, I personally chose the Braille. Every painting features a variety of landmarks which took place during and after the war, and also the monuments still remain today. But most of all, each of them offers fresh perspective of events which may still be acknowledged incorrectly from the perspective of Vietnam history.
― Le Hao
monade contemporary|単子現代
Dates: May 18 (Sat) – 26 (Sun), 2024 | Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 14:00 – 19:00
Venue: Room 2, B1F Yasaka Bldg, 10-2 Tsukimi-cho, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, 605-0829
*In cooperation with Café Mizuumi.
Events:
May 18 (Sat), 2024
-Talk Event Thinking about the Historicity and Politics of Art Today 18:00-19:00 *one drink order
Guest: Miyuki Kido (artist), Nozomi Murata (artist), Lee Hao (artist *remote participation)
Featuring Lee Hao’s work, we will consider and discuss the historicity and politics of today’s art.
-Opening reception 19:00-21:00
〈Exhibition Information〉
monade contemporary | 単子現代is pleased to present “AMBIGUOUS” by Lê Hào.
Lê Hào has been presenting installations, performances, and paintings in Vietnam and other Asian countries, focusing on the relationship among history, social conditions, families, and individuals in Vietnam. Recently, the artist presented an installation inspired by the situation of nuclear power plants in Japan and Vietnam in the group exhibition “reflection – from the seawall, a distant view” in Iwaki, Fukushima in 2020. In his solo exhibition “dim,” held in Kyoto in 2023, the artist, focusing on Braille, which is used by the visually disabled, critically examined the relationship between landscape and history by looking back on the events surrounding the Vietnam War and landscape photography in the context of current historical situations and personal histories.
This exhibition presents a re-composed group of works presented in the solo exhibition “dim” under the same title as the exhibition “AMBIGUOUS,” initially presented in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in 2024. The landscapes represented in the photographs and paintings change their aspect depending on the site, the artist, and the space in which they are exhibited. Abstraction of the landscape and the materiality of the Braille, placed as hidden meanings, make intense impressions on the coded and shared landscape to produce different meanings. When a field in a landscape is rendered into the medium as an image, how can the landscape gain or lose its meaning and emerge as a matter of fact? Please join us in the clamor of a landscape where the history of war and people’s memories and conflicts meet.
〈Artist〉
Lê Hào https://www.facebook.com/lequyanhhao
Born in Ben Tre province, VietNam 1980. The artist lives and works in SaiGon, VietNam, after graduating from Fine Art university of HCM (B.A). For recent exhibition, a solo exhibition “dim” In Kyoto-Japan (2023), and a group exhibition “reflection -distant view from seawall” in Fukushima, 2020 have been held among others.