The first comprehensive publication exploring the practice of Trần Lương, a key figure in Vietnamese contemporary art.
Copublished with Art Jameel, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Western Australia, and the Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, the publication traces the artist's beginnings as a painter, his subsequent move toward conceptual and performance art, his foundational role in the Vietnamese contemporary art scene, and the complex role he continues to play in Vietnam and Southeast Asia more broadly. A number of commissioned texts by curators, educators, artists, and scholars unpack the myriad roles Trần embodies, and is constantly merging from one to the next: artist, curator, facilitator, mediator, activist, archivist, mentor. An extensive archive of his curatorial work and community-focused projects has been compiled specifically for this publication. The book is conceived by Biljana Ciric, curator of Trần's multi-venue traveling solo exhibition Soaked in the Long Rain.
Trần Lương (born 1960 in Hanoi) is a performance and visual artist and a major figure in creating space for critical contemporary art in Vietnam. Among the first local artists to experiment with performance and video, his artwork is grounded in local experience. Active in creating opportunities for artists, Trần co-founded the Gang of Five (1983-1996), which organised monthly exhibitions in alternative spaces. In 1998, he co-founded Nhà Sàn Studio, the country's first artist-led experimental art space, and curated the majority of its exhibitions in the initial four years. He was founding director of the Hanoi Contemporary Art Centre in 2000, a post from which he resigned in 2003 in protest of government corruption. In 2020 he co-founded the Center for Art Patronage and Development (APD), an organisation focusing on artistic development with the orientation of intersecting activities between artistic development and social development. He has continued to direct APD's programme since its founding. Among his collaborative projects that take art to the people to generate debate about ways of living are the Mạo Khê Coal Mine Art Project, involving workshops with a worker's community in a rural mine; and On the Banks of the Red River, which presented interactive performance in an impoverished area of Hanoi.
