[Heart to heart in Southeast Asia] – caubetho
The development of contemporary art in Southeast Asia has various new explosive forces, affecting society, thought, and the economy. Still, there is also a thin line hanging between the old social collective consciousness and memory.
Contemporary artworks reflect Southeast Asia's unique social life and cultural characteristics and contain the possibility of liveliness and tranquillity. "70s New Wave", modern and contemporary art in the 1980s; facing the impact of the West, and reflecting on the evolution of spiritual thought. The artist uses intense sensory stimulation to awaken people's desire to survive. After 2000, artists began to explore issues related to their own culture and history.
Today, we are between environmental awareness and sustainability. It brings art back to the primitive existence of human thought. How do we coexist with the future under the universal language of art?
30 artists from S.E.A will be introduced with the special issue: Heart to heart in Southeast Asia. The article will focus on artist points of values, reviews of selected artworks, and artist cv.
[Brief intro for artist by editor]Nguyen Ngoc Vu (also known Vu a.k.a caubetho, born in 1991) is a Saigon-based emerging artist who creates artworks widely such as digital arts, paintings and sculptures to explore media and genre without limitation.
His works reveal his observation in political issues and pop culture icons by combining classical Vietnamese culture and pop art. It’s not only looking for the harmony between tradition and pop culture but also reflecting how traditional culture can be adapted to modern society.
[Main Questions for caubetho] 1. What’s your experience of learning art history/skills in school? How are the memories for you? - I’m a self-taught artist. I spend time observe and practive my art skills while working in the advertising industry. I’m currently working full-time at my studio but the overal exeperience working with other people were pretty interesting.
2. Who is your favourite artist? Could you share 1 or 2, and tell us why?- Takashi Murakami – Eastern influence
- Andy Warhol và Jeff Koons – Western influence.
Their approach to art is original and fascinating.
3. As an artist, what’s the definition of contemporary art for you?- The story/the concept: the people and the things that surround me; random moments in life from different perspective.
- The technique: combination of different techniques and materials
4. Following previous question, how would you define contemporary art/modernisation in the Vietnamese art scene?- Contemporary Art is a new concept that was revinvented with the influence of many different schools of art.
- The artists are more opened to creative methods and also incliced to use the Internet as another of their creative sources.
- Personally I think that Vietnam Contemporary Art is an interesting and alluring juxtaposition between the Western techniques and Asian's own fascinating and unique stories.
5. What inspired you to create the digital art/installation artworks? - Working in the advertising field give me exposure to different types of industrial materials. Thus, led me to wonder if I can use to them together with traditional materials. These questions inspired me to practice more on installation art
6. In your works, you referenced various aspect of genre and heritage in your growing experience to probe questions about daily’s observation, political issues and pop culture icons. How did you arrange the balance of relationships? Are you trying to form an interactive relationship between different elements to express your ideas?- I bring different aspects of everyday's life, social issues, cultural values.. together without much troubles. I work on that by spending a lot of time observing. In order to balance out, i multitask different projects at one times. I learn that all ideas in the end somehow always connect to one another. By working on one project, i can almost trace back or come up with new ideas for the other project
7. During the different periods of art life, the artwork reflected on the particular points of personal value. Do you have significant moments in your life reflected on the paintings that the audience never noticed about the meaning behind it? - An interesting fact that I have observe over time is that my audience tend to pay less attention to the works that reflect more of my personal value and emotion.
8. When was your first exhibition in your life? Can you share more with the story (with classmates/artists/community/gallery)?- I have attended sereral group exhibitions at quite an early stage in my life, when I started practicing Origami. I focused more on fine art after I finished college. My first personal exhibition was held at Six Space, Hanoi, Vietnam back 2019. It was called – Play – A visual test of Nguyen Ngoc Vu, sponsored by the Vietnamese-Danish Cultural Development and Exchange.
https://www.caubetho.com/play/
“The multicolored, multi-faceted, polymorphic Tuong masks are highly symbolic characters, which represent the social standing, heritage, and (im)piety of Vietnamese people and Vietnamese culture in general. Inspired by this traditional Vietnamese theatre performance (Tuong), Nguyen Ngoc Vu brings a new perspective on culture through highly interactive artworks, with contemporary concept, materials and presentation”
9. You have travelled and exhibited in many countries. In your observation, what’s the identity that brings Vietnamese art into the global ecosystem?- Tradition meets contemporary art.
10. Many people are seriously affected by the pandemic. When the lockdown policy started to be implemented in the city, people were spending quite a long time by themselves at home. Could you share with us how you overcome it?- It was a rough time for everyone and myself, but i thought it was a needed experience for me in order to learn to adapt to a different working pace, getting out of my normal comfort zone.
11. How do you see the times in the year 2020/2021? (Please use one word to represent the year 2020 and the year 2021 for yourself, and tell us why you choose it.) - 2020 – slow: the period where I focus on finding myself and the people around me.
- 2021 – fast: the lockdown period, where my projects are either postponed or extened.
12. How would you see the pop art culture in Vietnamese art and creativity industry?- Pop art is still relatively new but I cannot deny its influences on the creativity industry and especially in Vietnam. However, Vietnam’s cultural heritage will still play a big impact in this industry.
13. Most of your works, you utilised bold colour widely, what made you to select light colour as part of the component?- Light colour usage helps me to bringing the contrast in my work, from the characters to the scenarios in one special painting.
14. I have seen your cooperation with some famous brands, especially ELLE, can you share about your experience working with the fashion magazine?- I also spend a lot of my time working in the adveritisng industry, espcially graphic design and illustration. Having reached out by global brands is still, to this day, took me by surprise. I usually have to consider different aspects before taking on a specific project. With ELLE, I really enjoyed working with the team.
15. You used loads of comic and cartoon elements in your work, what does it stand for in the artworks? What is the message in responding to the society?- The elements show up in my paintings are mostly from my childhood memories or they just happened to come to me while i was working on the project. I like how relevant they can also be to my audience, i see the use of the cartoon elements as an indirect communication.
16. Do you think art can help people step away from Covid-19 psychologically? During the tough time, do you think art does play a crucial role in people’s mental health?- I think a majority will look for art as a way to help them with their mental health.
Thank you.