Interview: Danh Vo

Art Statements: Danh Vo at Isabella Bortolozzi

I would like to start by talking about Tobias Rehberger’s ship Gu Mo Ni Ma Da that is on show at Public Art Projects, which you in a sense are part of, because it is a reconstruction of the boat which your father build, for your family to escape Vietnam. Please tell about how this happened.

The project was made together with Tobias Rehberger, because he was doing some other projects that I found interesting and this was a way to appropriate his strategy with my projects. I wanted to challenge the notion of ownership with this project.

He reconstructs a part of your personal history, is the story the only part you have been contributing to this art piece, or have you helped in any other way?

What happens when you work together with other people is that different people have different fields of interest. I came up with the idea that my father should draw the ship form his memory. And the drawings came out very precise. After that it was Tobias’ choice what he wanted to do with the drawings. I imagine that it could have been very beautiful if Tobias had used the drawings to do a replica of the ship. But he chose to take the drawings and redesign the boat. It was meant to be exhibited in USA, because behind the whole idea was the original dream about going to America. There were from the beginning different layers in the piece, which have disappeared now that it is on show in a very different place.

Tobias Rehberger: Gu Mo Ni Ma Da, 2006. 431,8 x 1038,9 x 350,5 cm. Mahogany, metal, glass, epoxy, plastic, polyurethane coating

You work with the idea of ownership in several of your things

Ownership is something that I’m very interested in because I find it difficult to define this whole notion of ownership. The structure of art and the individualizing of an art production is something that I find difficult to come to terms with, because I’m surrounded by so many people, who mean a lot to me and help me out with different things.

Another part of that project are your marriages

The marriage project was a very early project for me, where I wanted to examine the structure of marriage. It started out at a point during a large discussion in Denmark about homosexuals' right to get married. I have never understood this discussion, because I have never understood the need to enter into a structure that you as a homosexual doesn’t belong to anyway. I wanted to use this at a personal level and hereby redefine the meaning of marriage. The idea was to marry different people who have had a large impact on different parts of my life, in one way or another. I’m using the structure to produce my surname.

You are narrowing down marriage to the exchange of names. Was it easy to convince people to join your project?

No, it was hard work to convince people that this was a good idea (Danh Vo laughs).

Is it an ongoing project?

Yes it is something that I do once in a while; get married and get divorced(laughter). I have used it once in an exhibition, where I showed all the legal papers.

Art Statements: Danh Vo at Isabella Bortolozzi

Codicil Affidavit for Will of Joseph Michel Carrier		First Codicil to the Will of Joseph Michel Carrier

Let’s return to the Basel Art Fair, where you have an exhibition at Art Statements with Bortolozzi. I need an explanation - what are you showing at the stand?

The exhibition is centred around a will or actually a codisil to a will. It is a long story but it takes its beginning when I meet an American guy who cruises me while I am at a residency in L.A.. It turns out that he has been working in Vietnam from ‘62 to ‘73 during the war, for RAND Cooperation which is a strategic military centre. He has this amazing archive of paparazzi photos of guys taken during the war. In Vietnam there is another intimacy between men, you can hold hands and even sleep together, that’s normal. So for him when he stayed there, it became a projection of a possibility of another reality. His archive includes lots of love letters from Vietnamese guys, and reading these letters it becomes clear that the American soldiers cruised the Vietnamese guys during the war. So he has this unique archive that can be used for studying homosexuality during war-time. It is interesting because during war-time the concept of masculinity is intensified, it makes it contradicting in a strange way. But we started a relationship and got to know each other, and at a certain time in our relationship he chose to leave all his things to me.

Is the room at Statements a story about your relationship with this guy?

No, that is not the point. I’m not interested in telling stories. What I try to do at Statements is to gather these things which are all fragments of a projected story. I’m interested in creating paradoxes.

Danh Vo: Untitled (America), 2008. Variable dimension 1 relief to be hanged on the wall (anonymous artist work dated '69), 1 Richard Nixon's campaign dress, 1 temporary cross grave marker

The stand contains all different kinds of objects, and as a viewer you try to get all these things to meet at some level.

I’m interested in creating questions in relation to ownership: who owns certain things? The meaning of a certain thing is not static, it changes through time and place. I’m trying to exploit certain structures of my identity. If I am an Asian artist or a homosexual artist it will be decoded in a certain way. So when I use these things new meaning is subsequently applied to them.

The idea was to create a moment of meaning at this fair, a moment which is only created because these certain things are gathered here by me. This way a specific moment of meaning arises but only because others are present to experience and negotiate the possible projections that occur. The possibility is there to create a narration, and in this way these gathered things point towards what we perceive as our personal reality. I try to deconstruct this reality in order to show that reality is constructed by so many aspects.

All the things on show come from different places. I wanted to work with identity but through pieces that weren't easily combinable. I include ethnographical pieces, but I’m not interested in making a portrait of a culture; I’m interested in the reflections that these things carry with them, and what we each see in these reflections.

Thank you

Danh Vo: Untitled (Rifle), 2007. Variable dimensions 1 very old French percussion cap hunting rifle from the H'Mong tribe, 1 belt with buffalo horn with a barking deer antler stopper, 1 pouch made from French military shirt pocket with a snap closure containing a small wooden tube with percussion caps, 1 bag of birdshot and some lead musket balls, 1 wood working adze and an elephant handler's mahout stick, 1 shaman's bamboo medicinal mixing tube & masher / dipper and a gourd medicine container, 1 woven reed soft head pillow, 1 bamboo tube musical instrument, 1 bone hair pick with dyed animal hair decoration, 1 pair of elephant bells suspended from elephant hide in a curved bamboo frame, 1 cardboard box with a top, Packaging chips, 14 documents

Danh Vo: Untitled (Christmas) / Untitled (Safe), 2007 / 2008. 60 x 45 cm. / 60 x 60 x 85 cm. Photo (Edition 1/24) / 1 safe, 1 golden necklace with golden crucifix, 1 USA military class ring, 1 Rolex certifficate

Danh Vo: Untitled (Sord), 2008. Variable dimensions 2 swords found outside the south Chinese sea