Vietnamese artist Danh Vo will be on show at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris from tomorrow until August 18. In a project called “Go Mo Ni Ma Da”, a mixture of English and French meaning “Good Morning Madame”. Danh Vo’s works are intimate yet imbued with political force. Without being overt or explicit, they question the power relations that underpin liberal societies, the rules that govern them and the fragility of the idea of the nation-state. They reveal the complexity of exchanges between peoples in the context of decolonization. The artist’s work is built around the circulation of values, whether material, economic, symbolic or spiritual, and has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in the most prestigious international institutions. The Go Mo Ni Ma Da project is structured around four groups of works:
– We The People, the artist’s signature work, is a life-size reproduction of Auguste Bartholdi’s Statue of Liberty, inaugurated in 1886. Some thirty fragments are on display, along with photographs taken during Bartholdi’s first trip to Egypt (1855-1856).
– Three chandeliers from the ballroom of the Hôtel Majestic, where the Paris Accords between the United States and Vietnam were signed on January 27, 1973, are reunited for the first time at this exhibition.
– Through the figure of Théophane Vénard (1829-1861), Danh Vo looks at the Missions Étrangères de Paris, a Catholic institution of missionary priests sent to Asia in the 17th century to Christianize Vietnam.
– Nine pieces in the exhibition were produced from lots acquired at Sotheby’s auction of items belonging to Robert S. McNamara, the former U.S. Secretary of Defense, whom the New York Times described in 2009 as “the failed architect of the Vietnam War”.
“Go Mo Ni Ma Da” Danh Vo at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris from May 24 to August 18
www.mam.paris.fr
Cette publication est également disponible en : Français (French)
