Nguyễn Duy Mạnh and Trương Công Tùng: Untamed Souls | Âmes Indomptables
Untamed Souls, featuring artists Trương Công Tùng and Nguyễn Duy Mạnh, brings together two contrasting practices and calls into question "earth" in all its physical, historical, and cultural implications.
Like a sumptuous feast set in a wild garden, a dramatic banquet of symbols is set to feed six people in the center of the gallery. Nguyễn Duy Mạnh named this series Hồn Xiêu - Phách Lạc (Wandering Souls - Lost Spirits, 2017-2023): "hồn" (spirit) refers to the ceramic "skins" hanging on the wall; "phách" (spirit's envelope) refers to the weightier, sophisticated dishes on the table, prepared from shards with ancient patterns. He dissects, peels, and reconstructs them into irresistible dishes themselves awaiting consumption. The artist's sharing and distribution of the meal invites spectators to participate in its ritual, in a gesture that is both generous and intimate.
The space dedicated to Trương Công Tùng in Untamed Souls recalls two sedimentary layers, wherein images, movements, poetry, and the chaos of a community intertwine. Trương Công Tùng captures his memories in the artwork As time passes through shadows… (2023-present). These works in lacquer, where the artist erases the superficial to find figures buried in deeper layers, recall the artist's childhood in Gia Lai, in the Vietnamese highlands, filled with long moonlit nights among the coffee trees where the sounds of insects are lullabies. Each lacquer painting on terracotta is a stele of memory. In the gallery’s lower level, the video Journey Of A Piece Of Soil (2013-ongoing), demands that viewers descend into a cramped space in a brief escape into the past.
On this planet, each patch of land holds the echoes of civilizations past and yet to come. Earth transcends mere territory or habitat; it is the sediment of time, at once a genesis and a finale. Untamed Souls seeks to illuminate this cycle, underscoring the finite nature of human progress while nature cradles the myriad of existence, remaining the sole entity capable of reverting to primordial origins and attaining eternity.
