The dinosaurs forgot their strains once more.They roll out anyway, carrying their foolish smiles, pompoms on their tails. Within the again row someone claps, one other simply watches.
Phung-Tien Phan doesn’t supply a narrative, no hero protagonist, however a dressing up rack of archetypes, as interchangeable as they’re ephemeral.If a latest realization in Phan’s work is,as StantonTaylor writes for a earlier exhibition, that every one id is efficiency, then right here the flimsy pursuit of a “true Self” is exchanged for a quasi-anthropological research of social habits. Phan’s actors strive on these characters, a contemplative gaze, a pose for the mirror: being collectively, eating alone, evolving consciousness. A mom, daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, artist. A political artist? Is there any such factor as a non-political artist? Right here, we discover the artist as a product, wrapped in cellophane and ornamented with saccharine bows, inextricably interwoven with mechanisms of extraction and consumption.
In the meantime, a stick determine aimlessly wanders between buildings that haven’t any reminiscence of being constructed. It’s spring. No actual vacation spot, simply infinite selections.
The humdrum of the on a regular basis is handled with affection in Phan’s work, mirrored within the alternative of rudimentary supplies.Working with elementary, ephemeral matter serves as an antidote to the permanence and authority asserted by conventional sculpture and its straightforward commodification. Maybe this delicate precariousness serves as a stance towards the gentle imperialism of a techno-utopian worldview. Dino Phan slouches onwards, lopsided however unbothered.
No character, no downside.
Now we have our setting. Now what’s the script?
at Schiefe Zähne, Berlin
till June 18, 2025
