FEBRUARY 9–MAY 9, 2018

Danh Vo Take My Breath Away

Funding for Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away is provided by Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne.

AdditionalSolomon support R. is providedGuggenheim by the Juliet Lea Museum Hillman Simonds Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Obel Family Foundation, the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, Beckett-Fonden, andTeacher the Danish Resource Arts Foundation. Unit

The first comprehensive survey in the United States of work by Danish artist Danh Vo (b. 1975,

TheBà R Leadershipịa, Vietnam) Committee offers for anthis illuminating exhibition is gratefully overview acknowledged of the artist’s for its productionsupport, with fromspecial 2003thanks to to the present. Mara and Marcio Fainziliber, Cochairs; Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, London, Paris; kurimanzutto,Vo’s installations Mexico City;dissect Robert the Soros; cultural Inigo Philbrickforces, andpower Francisca structures, Mancini; Theand Pritzker private Traubert desires Family that Foundation; shape our Murray Alexander Abramson; Peter Bentley Brandt; Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York; Galerieexperience Chantal of Crousel, the world. Paris; XavierHis work Hufkens; addresses and The themesJamil Collection. of artistic authorship, capitalism, colonialism, and religion, but presents these sweeping subjects through intimate personal narratives— The catalogue for this exhibition is supported by the New Carlsberg Foundation. what the artist calls the “tiny diasporas of a person’s life.” 1 Each project grows out of a period of intense research in which fortuitous encounters, historical study, and personal relationships are woven into psychologically potent tableaux. Subjected to Vo’s vivid processes of deconstruction and recombination, found objects, documents, and images become registers of latent histories and sociopolitical fissures.

Funding for Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away is provided by Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne. Additional support is provided by the Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Obel Family Foundation, the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, Beckett-Fonden, and the Danish Arts Foundation.

The Leadership Committee for this exhibition is gratefully acknowledged for its support, with special thanks to Mara and Marcio Fainziliber, Cochairs; Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, London, Paris; kurimanzutto, Mexico City; Robert Soros; Faurschou Foundation; Inigo Philbrick and Francisca Mancini; The Pritzker Traubert Foundation; Murray Alexander Abramson; Peter Bentley Brandt; Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York; Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris; Xavier Hufkens; The Jamil Collection; and Naomi Milgrom and John Kaldor. The catalogue for this exhibition is supported by the New Carlsberg Foundation. The exhibition includes installations, photographs, and works on paper from various points of the artist’s career. Significant subjects include the legacy of colonialism and the fraught status of the refugee. In particular, Vo has focused on European and American influences in Southeast Asia and Latin America, examining the relationship between military interventions and more diffuse cultural incursions from forces such as evangelical Catholicism and consumer brands. The objects used in his work are frequently charged by knowledge of their former ownership or presence at historical events. Whether presenting the intimate possessions of his family members, a series of thank-you notes from former secretary of state Henry Kissinger (b. 1923), or the chandeliers that glittered above the 1973 signing of the Paris Peace Accords, which marked the American withdrawal from the Vietnam War, Vo subtly probes the internal tensions embedded in his material. A sustained focus of the work has been the image of the United States in its own collective imagination and in that of the world—a central topic of this exhibition.

This Resource Unit parallels some of the themes in the exhibition and provides techniques for exploring both the visual arts and other areas of the curriculum. Images of the works included in this guide are available on the museum’s website at guggenheim.org/artscurriculum and can be downloaded or projected for classroom use. The images may be used for education purposes only and are not licensed for commercial applications of any kind. Before bringing your class to the Guggenheim, we invite you to visit the museum, read the guide, and decide what aspects of the exhibition are most relevant to your students. For more information and to schedule a class visit, call 212 423 3637.

This exhibition is organized by Katherine Brinson, Daskalopoulos Curator, Contemporary Art, with Susan Thompson, Associate Curator. History is important because it is about the present and shapes the future. Those who control history also control the present. I mistrust history because it is mostly the product of someone’s contemporary agenda. 2

< ABOUT THE ARTIST >

Danh Vo was born in Bà Rịa, Vietnam, in 1975. Mercedes-Benz car that Vo’s father prized— His family fled postwar Vietnam when the become material for his art. In other works, artist was four years old. A group of friends the artist considers commonplace objects and neighbors led by Vo’s father traveled in as silent historical witnesses, which accrue a handmade boat hoping to find eventual layers of meaning from their proximity refuge in the United States. After being to important historical figures and events. rescued at sea by a Danish shipping freighter, He disassembles items acquired from his family settled in Denmark where they were auctions and third parties, refashioning them granted political asylum and citizenship. Vo in evocative new arrangements. In these later attended the Royal Danish Academy of instances, including 16:32, 26.05 (2009) and Fine Arts in Copenhagen and graduated from Lot 20. Two Kennedy Administration Cabinet the Städelschule in Frankfurt in 2005. Vo’s Room Chairs (2013), his reconceived displays work draws upon many individual biographies, examine how historical figures, institutions, including his own, as well as facets of political and events affect the course of individual lives history and social memory to dissect the and might hold the potential for multiple, various forces that affect our lives in ways both conflicting interpretations. overt and unexamined. “Things that you know so well that are so Vo uses a series of related strategies to familiar to you,” the artist has said, “[can be analyze the structures and processes that made] unfamiliar with very, very simple shape our identities, such as the American information.” 3 Vo makes what is familiar Dream, capitalist culture, civic bureaucracy, appear strange by presenting commonplace colonial history, migration, and religion. and personal objects in new combinations He reconfigures objects to create tableaux and situations. In doing so, he asks the that probe the relationships between people, viewer to reconsider the items’ layers and their belongings, and their identities. In associations. For Vo, information gained works such as If you were to climb the from these new contexts can rupture our Himalayas tomorrow (2006) and Das Beste established ideas about history, identity, and oder Nichts (2010), commercially valuable politics, as well as our own positions within objects—including a Rolex watch and a and knowledge of these complex systems. I see myself, like any other person, as a container that has inherited these infinite traces of history without inheriting any direction. 4

< OMA TOTEM > < DAS BESTE ODER NICHTS >

Danh Vo often employs seemingly mundane objects to meld personal biographical narratives with global political histories. While Vo at times intervenes in the objects he selects, deconstructing and recombining them, at other moments they are endowed with new meanings solely through the act of their selection and recontextualization as artworks. He identifies objects associated with figures of historical or personal significance, emphasizing otherwise hidden meanings and histories. The objects in his work include historical Oma Totem, 2009. Phillips television set, Gorenje washing machine, artifacts, mass-market commodities, documents, Bomann refrigerator, wooden crucifix, and personal casino entrance card, letters, and photographs, all of which provide 86 5/8 x 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 inches (220 x 60 x 60 cm). Private collection, Turin © Danh Vo. photo: Jacopo Menzani, courtesy the artist and material form to the relationship between global Galleria Zero, Milan; Das Beste oder Nichts, 2010. Engine of Phung Vo’s Mercedes-Benz 190, 26 x 40 x 81 inches (66 x 101.6 x 205.7 cm). events and individual people. Vo weaves broad Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds themes like colonialism, nationalism, or a notion contributed by the International Director’s Council 2011.56 © Danh Vo. photo: Kristopher McKay © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation of “America” into his work, along with personal details gleaned from the people and objects filtered through the immigrant experience, that are close to him and that he encounters and demonstrates the centrality of familial during his process of research. relationships within Vo’s work. The Mercedes- Benz engine is from a car owned by the artist’s In 2009 Vo stacked a television set onto father, Phung Vo, who escaped postwar a refrigerator, which was placed on a washing Vietnam with his family on a boat carrying machine, and attached a large crucifix to the over one hundred other refugees. The Vo family door of the fridge. This work, Oma Totem, is emigrated to Denmark after their vessel composed from objects given to the artist’s was picked up by a Danish commercial ship. grandmother, Nguyễn Thị Ty, by an immigrant Das Beste oder Nichts represents an unaltered relief program upon her arrival in West Germany artifact of his father’s determination to achieve in 1980. Made with the actual appliances and assimilation as defined by Western capitalism. 6 crucifix that were part of the artist’s grandmother’s In an earlier work from 2006, If you were to climb home, the found objects in Oma Totem were the Himalayas tomorrow, Vo similarly enlists his once used, touched, and examined every day. 5 father’s possessions—including a gold Rolex watch, a Dupont lighter, and an American military class Created in 2010, Das Beste oder Nichts presents ring—in a tableau that collectively illustrates Phung a portrait of worldly success in the West as Vo’s measurement of his own achievements. VIEW + DISCUSS Show: Oma Totem, 2009 FURTHER EXPLORATIONSEXPLORATIONS ▲ Can students identify the objects in • Every object in the world has both physical characteristics (color, this work? How is this work similar to dimensions, material, shape, etc.) and a history of events accumulated over time. To explore these two aspects, ask each student to bring a or different from sculptures that they personally memorable and portable object to class. It is important that are familiar with? they not talk about the object in advance, and each student should work with a partner. ▲ The title of this work is Oma Totem. “Oma” means “grandma” in German. First, ask the partnered students to exchange objects, so that everyone When the artist’s grandmother emigrated has a personally unfamiliar object. Request one of the students in each pair to describe the unknown object’s physical characteristics in as much from Vietnam to Europe, she was given detail as possible for about a minute. Then the other student should do these goods by an organization that helps the same with the object that they have been given. The owner of the immigrants. How does this knowledge object is not allowed to speak during this time—only to listen. alter their first impressions of the work? What do these objects have in common? Return the object to its owner and repeat the process, except this Why did the immigrant relief organization time the owner of the object should describe everything about the select these objects for refugees? What object that cannot be known only by looking at it. Then the other student should do the same. does it say about what immigrants might expect from life in the West and what Discuss what the differences were between the first and second might be expected of them? descriptions. Which conversation did they prefer, and why? How are the two conversations related? What can we learn about ourselves Show: Das Beste oder Nichts, 2010 and our relationship to the objects in our life from this exercise? How does this exercise relate to Oma Totem and Das Beste oder Nichts? ▲ What are the students looking at? Can • Vo has since created a relief of Oma Totem’s facade in bronze, granite, they identify the object in this work? marble, and wood. It currently marks his grandmother’s grave. He has How is this work similar to or different also created a black granite iteration carved with golden text borrowed from sculptures that they are familiar with? from the tombstone of poet John Keats (1795–1821). The phrase reads: “Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.” This black granite ▲ tombstone is intended to mark the grave of the artist’s father, Phung Vo, The title of this work is Das Beste oder 7 Nichts, a German phrase that means when he passes. Phung frequently collaborates on projects with his son.

"The Best or Nothing,” which is the A memorial can range from the offering of a single flower to erecting slogan for the automobile manufacturer a large-scale permanent monument. It can honor an event, a person, Mercedes-Benz. Danh Vo’s father a group of people, or even a beloved pet. Ask your students to think viewed owning a Mercedes-Benz car about something or someone that they would like to pay tribute to. as a symbol of having “made it” after Then sketch the design and consider what material(s) would be best immigrating to Denmark from Vietnam. to use. How large or small will it be? Will it be permanent or last for only a short time? Where should it be placed? Would the memorial This work is the engine removed from include an inscription, and if so what would it say? When the students the artist’s father’s car. How does this are done, ask them to share their plans with their classmates and knowledge alter their first impressions compare the various possibilities. of the work? Why did the artist decide to show only the engine? ▲ Compare and contrast Das Beste oder Nichts with Oma Totem. What do they have in common? How are they different? I do think that we collect things that we desire, because what we desire tells us something about who we are. I guess that’s why I like to shift and change my arrangements from one exhibition to another. These things should never be fixed or totally resolved. Desire is a complicated thing. 8

< 16:32, 26.05 > < 08:43, 26.05 > < 08:03, 28.05 >

On January 27, 1973, two years before Danh to the building’s new owners, describing how he Vo’s birth, delegations from the United States, had long been fascinated by a photograph of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in the South Vietnam (the Viet Cong), North Vietnam, hotel’s ballroom. Vo considered the chandeliers and South Vietnam sat around a table in the as witnesses to a momentous occasion, one that ballroom of the Hôtel Majestic in Paris under played a role in shaping his life. After the 1975 fall magnificent chandeliers and signed the Paris of South Vietnam, Vo’s family moved from Bà Rịa Peace Accords. The agreement was essentially in southeast Vietnam, where Vo was born, to the a sham and provided no realistic hope of western island of Phú Quốc, and then resettled in achieving peace, but it allowed the United Ho Chi Minh City. In 1979 they fled the country States to save face and extricate itself from the by boat, and were eventually rescued by a Danish conflict. After the withdrawal of U.S. troops, freighter. Vo’s account emphasizes how every Saigon eventually fell to North Vietnamese biography is as much determined by historical forces. Due to the implementation of repressive events as by chance encounters. These chandeliers policies, which included reeducation camps, might have been lost to history, but now, removed huge numbers of South Vietnamese sought from their original site, they allude to both Vo’s to leave the country by any means possible. personal story and the long history of Western Vo and his family, like many others, would be intervention in the country of his birth. But these indirectly affected by the 1973 agreement made are not the only resonances present in the objects. underneath the watch of these chandeliers. Vo is also interested in their function as decorative objects that dazzle and delight. He has stated, Vo’s discovery of the sale and renovation of the “These links to my personal life are important to Hôtel Majestic in 2009 led him to write a letter me, but art has to transcend this level.” 9

16:32, 26.05, 2009. Late 19th-century chandelier, dimensions variable. Gift of Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner to the Centre Pompidou Foundation. Deposited at Musée national d’art moderne, 2016. Centre Pompidou, Paris / Musée national d’art moderne © Danh Vo. photo: Abigail Enzaldo and Emilio Bernabé García courtesy the artist and Museo Jumex, Mexico City; 08:43, 26.05, 2009. Late 19th-century chandelier, dimensions variable. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gift of the Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art and the Fund for the Twenty- First Century, 2010 © Danh Vo. photo: Nick Ash, courtesy the artist; 08:03, 28.05, 2009. Late 19th-century chandelier, dimensions variable. Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen © Danh Vo. photo: Serge Hasenböhler © the artist and Kunsthalle Basel, 2009 VIEW + DISCUSS Show: 16:32, 26.05, 2009 FURTHER EXPLORATIONSEXPLORATIONS 08:43, 26.05, 2009 08:03, 28.05, 2009 • These chandeliers are connected to the fate of the Vo family. The signing of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords precipitated the fall

▲ of Saigon, which in turn played a role in the decision of Vo’s family Ask your students to describe what to flee Vietnam for the West. What world events have personally they are looking at and any affected the family histories of your students? Ask them to research associations that they have with these these events, explain how the events impacted their families, and objects. What adjectives do they use present their findings to their classmates. to describe them? Where might they expect to find them? • The Vietnam War became increasingly unpopular in the United States in the mid-1960s. The Paris Peace Accords provided a way to

▲ extricate the United States from the conflict in Vietnam, but the Read the short related essay to your agreement was highly consequential for South Vietnam. students and show them the photograph documenting the signing By 1975 North Vietnam had conquered South Vietnam, and of the Paris Peace Accords of 1973 in communist initiatives had also been victorious in Cambodia and Laos. the ballroom of the Hôtel Majestic. In a radio and television address, South Vietnamese President How does knowledge of the history of Nguyên Van Thiệu (1923–2001) resigned, accusing the United States of betrayal. “At the time of the peace agreement the United States these objects change their response? agreed to replace equipment on a one-by-one basis,” he said, “but the United States did not keep its word. Is an American’s word reliable these days?” Thiệu continued: “The United States did not keep its promise to help us fight for freedom and it was in the same fight that the United States lost 50,000 of its young men.” 11

Divide your class into three groups and ask them to research the last years of the Vietnam War from the perspective of the United States, South Vietnam, and North Vietnam, respectively. Many resources are available online, some of which are listed at the end of this resource unit. Ask the students to discuss and debate these perspectives in class. Danh Vo has installed these chandeliers in various ways for different exhibitions, • Unlike many artists who “make” work with their hands, the materials often dismantling them entirely. He chosen for Vo’s works are frequently discovered, retrieved, or salvaged. What do the students think about this method of creating says, “I like to try different methods of works of art? installing a work each time it is shown, if it’s possible, and if it makes sense. I really liked the way the chandelier looked . . . spread out on the floor and lit up.” 10 How do the different installations change the impact of the work? What other ways might these objects be installed in a space? ▲ Take a close look at the photograph of the ballroom at the Hôtel Majestic. Describe the environment. What “clues” inform us that something The first signing ceremony of the Paris Peace Accords in the grand ballroom of the Hôtel important is going on? Majestic, Paris, January 27, 1973. photo: © 2018 The Associated Press Over the past thirty years, I became familiar with my father’s handwriting from all the signs and menus that he handwrote for the various small food stalls he owned in Denmark. Writing calligraphy can become no different from making a burger; calligraphy can become an act of pure labor. 12

< 2.2.1861 >

During a residency in Paris in 2009, Danh Vo in his own hand and mails a copy to each discovered a farewell letter written in 1861 by of the work’s collectors. At his son’s request, French missionary and martyr Jean-Théophane Phung, who speaks neither French nor English, Vénard (1829–1861). The letter is addressed to will faithfully continue to reproduce the Vénard’s father as he calmly awaits his execution letter in his beautiful handwriting until his for refusing to stop proselytizing—one of many death. Hundreds of these works have been killings of Catholic missionaries that preceded distributed to individuals and institutions the French colonization of Vietnam in the mid- around the world. 13 “Created through a simple nineteenth century. gesture of transcription, the reproduction of the letter evokes the colonial history Vo asked his own father, Phung Vo, who is of Vietnam and, on a more personal level, a skilled calligrapher, to transcribe this last bears witness to two father-son relationships, communication. To make this ongoing work separated by 150 years.” 14 on paper, Phung rewrites the French letter Vo characteristically locates broader histories in the details of individual characters and their stories. Here he selects Vénard’s beautifully written letter as a point of entry to consider the history of foreign influence in Vietnam. French missionaries are considered by some historians as laying the groundwork for the subsequent colonial occupation by France of Indochina. Importantly, however, Vo’s work foregrounds the admirable courage, humanity, and faith of the missionaries, at the same time that it probes their larger role in a complex sociopolitical situation.

2.2.1861, 2009– . Ink on paper, writing by Phung Vo, 11 5/8 x 8 1/8 inches (29.6 x 21 cm), open edition © Danh Vo. photo: Nick Ash, courtesy the artist VIEW + DISCUSS Show: 2.2.1861, 2009– FURTHER EXPLORATIONSEXPLORATIONS Please note that this work contains references to violence and will be more appropriate for older students. • One of the most important aspects of 2.2.1861 is the relationship between Danh Vo and his father, Phung Vo, who creates this ongoing ▲ Ask your students to look carefully work on paper. A few times a week for nearly a decade, Phung has at this work. What do they notice? transcribed this letter, carefully rendering it in blue fountain pen on a single sheet of white paper. Since he does not know the French

▲ language, Vo has referred to his father’s act as one of “pure labor” Graphology is the study of handwriting, more akin to a visual composition than linguistic communication. especially for the purpose of character analysis. 15 Look carefully at this work. A handwritten letter conveys a lot about the author that a computer- What personality traits does the generated letter cannot. Ask your students to find a handwritten letter handwriting suggest about the person written by a person that they are interested in researching. They may want to look at the extensive online collection of the Morgan Library: who wrote it? themorgan.org/collection/literary-and-historical-manuscripts/list.

▲ Then ask them to copy the letter as carefully as they can. What did Request that your students read the that feel like? What did they learn? related introductory essay as well as the translation of the letter. How does • For hundreds of years before the invention of e-mail, people this information alter their responses communicated through handwritten letters. Many letters written by to this work? famous people have been archived on the Internet, but it is no doubt a dying . . . or dead art.

My dearest, much honored and much loved Father, Ask your students to write a letter by hand to someone they care As my sentence is still delayed, I will send you one about, and send it off in an envelope with a stamp. The recipient will more word of farewell, which will probably be the likely be both surprised and pleased, since the practice of letter last. These last days in my prison pass quietly; all writing is now such a rarity. Consider how it felt to handwrite a letter. who surround me are civil and respectful and a How is it different from sending an e-mail? good many love me. From the great mandarin down to the humblest private soldier, every one regrets • In addition to historical correspondence, Vo frequently uses official that the laws of the country condemn me to death. documents in his work, including diplomas, divorce certificates, I have not been put to the torture like my brethren. marriage licenses, passports, and wills. Although these documents A slight sabre-cut will separate my head from my may seem puzzling to the viewer, many of these works relate directly body, like the spring flower which the Master of the or circuitously to Vo’s personal history and biography. Ask your Garden gathers for His pleasure. We are all flowers students to create a list of official documents that are connected to planted on this earth, which God plucks in His own their lives. How do these documents function in the world and impact good time, some a little sooner, some a little later. the people whose names appear on them? One is as the blushing rose, another the virginal lily, a third the humble violet. Let us each strive to please Our Sovereign Lord and Master according to the gift and the sweetness which He has bestowed upon us. I wish you, my dearest father, a long, happy, and peaceful old age, and that you may bear the cross of life with Jesus unto the Calvary of a happy death. Father and son, may we meet in paradise. I, poor little moth, go first. Adieu!

Your devoted and dutiful son, Theophane Vénard, Missionary Apostolic 16 I suppose I tried to avoid nostalgia by not being sentimental with the objects . . . . It didn’t give the objects new names or identities; they were simply transported into an art context. 17

< LOT 20. TWO KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION CABINET ROOM CHAIRS >

Viewing Danh Vo’s work is an experience marked by a gradual uncovering of meanings. Unlike other artworks that you may be used to seeing in galleries and museums, Vo’s work is largely made from found and appropriated items imbued with political or personal importance. In some works, Vo calls attention to the commonplace objects present during significant historical moments and transforms those used by notable figures. In doing so, he highlights the items’ roles as witnesses. Many of these everyday relics are not immediately identifiable as important or memorable, yet Vo grapples with the unreliable and fading nature of our collective memory by “revaluing the 18 historical sense of a common object.” Lot 20. Two Kennedy Administration Cabinet Room Chairs, 2013. Leather, 102 x 29 x 17 inches (259.1 x 73.7 x 43.2 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by the In Lot 20. Two Kennedy Administration Cabinet International Director’s Council 2013.13 © Danh Vo. photo: © Marian Goodman Gallery Room Chairs (2013), Vo disassembles two chairs that once furnished the cabinet room mistaken for an abstract sculpture; the artwork’s of president John F. Kennedy (1917–1963). material and its latent historical significance The artist purchased the chairs in a Sotheby’s is not immediately identifiable. Parts of auction of items that once belonged to the late the chairs, such as the muslin lining, leather Robert McNamara (1916–2009)—the former upholstery, or cotton stuffing, are refashioned defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and into individual pieces and displayed as Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973). McNamara signifiers of a distant yet influential past. oversaw the escalation of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and used these chairs when In ripping apart these chairs, Vo creates what they occupied president Kennedy’s cabinet curator Patrick Charpenel calls “archaeological room. Later, they were gifted to McNamara by fragments” 19 of a complicated history. Yet, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) after as with all of Vo’s work, extended looking, President Kennedy’s death. Approaching the examination, and discovery reveal convergent work, the torn leather or wood frame could be layers of historical and personal significance. VIEW + DISCUSS Show: Lot 20. Two Kennedy Administration FURTHER EXPLORATIONSEXPLORATIONS Cabinet Room Chairs, 2013 • Vo considers how objects are silent witnesses to important and ▲ What do your students notice with this complicated moments in our past. Sometimes, these objects may not seem significant until their history becomes apparent, along with work? What are they looking at? knowledge of the people that owned and used them. While thinking about an important event in their life, ask your students what object ▲ The chairs were owned by a man was a silent witness. named Robert McNamara, who worked with former presidents John F. Kennedy Would people be able to tell the object was important just by looking and Lyndon B. Johnson to make at it? Why or why not? If the object could talk, what kinds of things might the object say? Ask your students to write a diary entry from the important decisions about our country perspective of the object, thinking about how the object might tell in the 1960s. How does this knowledge the story of an important life event. How might the object’s perspective affect how they see the work? on the event be different or similar to your own? ▲ “These sorts of items never end up in • In Lot 20. Two Kennedy Administration Cabinet Room Chairs, a historical public auction,” Danh Vo has stated. object is used as unexpected art material. Vo completely transforms two “It was purely by chance that I was leather chairs by disassembling them and using the pieces of leather upholstery to create a work that is confounding and sculptural. Ask your able to get my hands on these objects students to think about how they might completely transform an object because they are normally donated that they use, and bring in an object that is about to be discarded. directly to Presidential libraries.” 20 (Some examples may be old toys or outgrown clothing.) While the How might these objects be displayed objects should have a history, they should also not be valuable. Inform differently in another setting? the students that they will be manipulating or taking apart the objects What might they look like in a history to make a new artwork.

museum or a house? Before transforming each of their objects, ask the students to sketch out

▲ their ideas. How can they completely transform an everyday object? Vo thinks a lot about objects that may What tools will they need to disassemble and reassemble these objects? look commonplace at first, but have What would be an ideal way to display this work? their own pasts and hidden meanings. Ask your students to think of objects After drawing out their initial plan, begin experimenting with their planned that they own, which might have other transformations or move on to discussion. Why have they chosen this particular way of altering the object? How might that alteration change unknown purposes or messages. How its meaning, and how do they see their objects differently now? Do they might an alteration to form or shape have new ideas about Vo’s work now that they have considered change an object’s meaning? transforming an object like the artist? Let her travel, let her be spread around. Let it just be this fluid mass that travels and becomes something very different [from the original]. 21

< WE THE PEOPLE (DETAIL) >

Vo’s We the People (detail) is an exact copy of the famous statue that has been separated into over three hundred distinct fragments, which are presented in various locations. This reconfigured display provides an opportunity to observe sections of the statue up close and from unorthodox angles. Some portions are recognizable—a gigantic ear or slices of hands and feet—while other abstracted pieces look more like geometric sculptures. We the People (detail), 2011–16. Copper, 390 kg. Jumex Collection, Mexico. © Danh Vo. photo: Kunstbetrieb and the artist Although Vo did not visit the Statue of Liberty In the work of Danh Vo, art becomes a site in person before creating We the People of transformation and a locus for viewers to (detail), 22 he was fascinated by the way the reconsider their existing beliefs and ideas. By monument was made in the 1880s. To fashion changing the context and manipulating familiar each piece, Vo used the same nineteenth-century objects, Vo challenges viewers’ preexisting technique of repoussé. 23 This method molds a notions about how meaning is shared and from thin layer of copper around a standing armature where it is derived. While familiar, personal, and to create a completely hollow statue. After everyday objects often spur these reflections, Vo’s researching the sculpture and discovering its We the People (detail) (2011–16) deals explicitly copper skin is only 2.4 mm thick, Vo was surprised with the widely known. Here, Vo examines by the unexpected fragility of the famous what it means for individuals to view a singular monument. In some of Vo’s fragments, the inner and widely recognizable icon in a new way. skeleton is visible and the statue’s vulnerable structure is laid bare. These distributable and In 2010 Vo hired a fabricator in Shanghai to carefully reproduced pieces could be read as a produce a one-to-one replica of the Statue celebration of the icon or as a critique. Rather of Liberty. The statue, originally designed by than set out to endow Lady Liberty with a French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi specific new meaning, Vo wishes to give viewers (1834–1904), was a gift from France to the an opportunity to reexamine the statue and the United States in 1876 celebrating the centennial ideals it represents from their own perspective. anniversary of the signing of the Declaration Of this work Vo has said, “We the People is not of Independence. The statue is seen as both about going to the past. Since it’s one of the most a beacon of freedom and a monument to important icons for Western liberty I think [it] is ideas of American opportunity and possibility. very much about the present and our future.” 24 VIEW + DISCUSS Show: We the People (detail), 2011–16 FURTHER EXPLORATIONSEXPLORATIONS ▲ What do your students notice about • The Statue of Liberty is a monument that has inspired artists, poets, this work? What are they looking at? and writers in different ways. At the time of the statue’s construction, Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) wrote “The New Colossus” (1883), a poem We the People is an exact replica that was engraved in 1903 upon a plaque mounted to the statue’s base. of the Statue of Liberty, divided into An excerpt of Lazarus’s poem reads: over three hundred fragments that are displayed separately. Does this Give me your tired, your poor, information change the way they see Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the work? The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

▲ I lift my lamp beside the golden door! Show your students an image of the Statue of Liberty. How is the Some of the statue’s symbolism can be tied to this poem. While Vo’s statue similar to Danh Vo’s replica? work is a replica of the icon that inspired Lazarus, the artist confronts How is it different? our preconceived ideas about the Statue of Liberty by fragmenting the monument. To explore the ways in which Vo challenges these ▲ The artist titled this work, We the conceptions, ask your students to write their own poems in response to his multipart statue after reading Lazarus’s sonnet. How are these new People, in reference to the first three poems different from or similar to the sentiments that Lazarus expresses? words of the Declaration of Independence. 25 Why do you think • While Vo transforms the Statue of Liberty in We the People, he displays he chose those words? Can you each individual piece so that the monument’s thin copper construction think of any other titles for this work? is visible. “I thought it would be [a] great challenge to take an image that everyone has some idea about and twist it. Do something to it.” 26

▲ Have your students sketch a famous object or monument they would Unlike the Statue of Liberty, fragments want to “twist” or transform. How do these changes impact the meaning? of Vo’s statue can be in different places at the same time. If you could • In researching for We the People, Vo was fascinated by the way the put a single piece of We the People monument was created using thin layers of embossed metal molded anywhere, where would you put it, around an armature, a technique known as repoussé. 27 and why? Experiment with this technique. Your class will need aluminum foil, cardboard, glue, and yarn. Give each student a cardboard base and have them draw a design. Next, ask the students to outline their drawing with glue, pasting pieces of yarn onto their drawings to create a raised design. After the drawings dry, place aluminum foil onto their raised designs and press down, creating embossed imprints of the designs. The students may also experiment with wooden styli or pencils to create additional texture.

Discuss what surprised them about this process. Now that they have experimented with this technique, how might they think about the Statue of Liberty differently? RESOURCES 2003. https://vimeo.com/149799416. of Robert S. McNamara Classics, . Los Angeles: Sony Pictures Morris, Errol, dir. watch?v=8glrGJxpo9A. May 27, 2013. YouTube video, 4:19. https://www.youtube.com/ “Danh Vo—We the People.” National of Denmark, Gallery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOqXK2BHU-Q. of Denmark,Gallery May 6, 2013. YouTube video, 15:04. “Danh Vo about the exhibition ‘Hip hip hurra.’” National www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/home/. N.H.: Florentine Films; Washington, D.C.: WETA, 2017. http:// Burns, Ken, and Lynn Novick, dir. FILMS ANDVIDEOS danh-vo-24-09-2013-interview/. September 23, 2013. https://www.flashartonline.com/2013/09/ Chaillou, Timothée. “Interview with Danh Vo.” New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2018. Brinson, Katherine. ARTICLES ANDBOOKS The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away. Exh. cat. The Vietnam War. Walpole, Flash Art, Av WEBSITES l T vietnam-war. V PBS vi Photographs. N com/2014/04/1973-news-paris-peace-accords-signed.html. U T Wf5TIWhSwdU. pbslearningmedia.org/collection/teaching-the-vietnam-war/#. es eachingHistory.org. eaching Channel.“The etnam-photos ietnam?” https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching- pdated April10,2014.http://avengers-in-time.blogspot. ational Archives sons/vietnam-photos engers inTime L earning M ” https://www.archives.gov/educa . edia. “T . . “TheW “1973, N https://www.archives.gov/e eaching theV V ietnam War—H ar ews: P in V aris P iet N ietnam War. am: AStor eace ow I Accor t s I ion d t Taughtin u /lessons/ y in ” https://nj. ds signed.” cation/ NOTES

1 Sofiá Hernández Chong Cuy, “Pratchaya Phinthong + Danh Vo,” 13 Hilarie M. Sheets, “Lady Liberty, Inspiring Even in Pieces,” Modern Painters 20, no. 10 (Dec. 2008–Jan. 2009), pp. 56–57. New York Times, September 20, 2012, http://www.nytimes. 2 Danh Vo, “Make History: Danh Vo in Conversation with Nora com/2012/09/23/arts/design/danh-vos-we-the-people-project-in- Taylor,” Garage, no. 8 (Spring–Summer 2015), p. 82. chicago.html. 14 3 Danh Vo, “Danh Vo Interview: A Question of Freedom,” Louisiana Maura Lynch, “The Personal and Political in the Art of Danh Vo,” Channel, January 22, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/ Inside/Out, May 12, 2011, https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_ watch?v=1ELmm-jNkLs. out/2011/05/12/the-personal-and-political-in-the-art-of-danh-vo/. 15 4 Danh Vo, quoted in Robecchi Michele, “Living History,” Art in Merriam-Webster, s.v. “graphology (n.),” accessed December 28, America, October 1, 2012, https://www.artinamericamagazine.com/ 2017, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/graphology. news-features/magazines/living-history/. 16 Théophane Vénard, A Modern Martyr: Théophane Vénard (Blessed), 5 See the National Gallery of Denmark’s artwork entry for Oma Totem, edited by James Anthony Walsh (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Catholic Foreign accessed December 28, 2017, http://www.smk.dk/en/visit-the-museum/ Mission Society, 1913), pp. 190–91. Quoted in Danh Vo: Take My exhibitions/past-exhibitions/2011/danh-vo/work-oma-totem/. Breath Away, edited by Katherine Brinson (New York: Solomon R. 6 Guggenheim Foundation, 2018), pp. 30–31. See the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s Collection Online 17 entry for Das Beste oder Nichts, accessed December 28, 2017, Vo, “Interview with Danh Vo.” https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/28790. 18 Patrick Charpenel, “Foreword: Readymades with History,” in Danh 7 See Bartholomew Ryan, “Tombstone for Phùng Vo,” Sightlines Vo [Wād al-ḥaŷara], edited by Charpenel et al. (Mexico City: (blog), Walker Art Center, January 4, 2012, https://walkerart.org/ Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, 2016), p. 4. magazine/tombstone-for-phung-vo; and Ana Teixeira Pinto, “Danh 19 Ibid. Vo’s All your deeds shall in water be writ, but this in marble at Isabella 20 Vo, “Interview with Danh Vo.” Bortolozzi Galerie, Berlin,” Art Agenda, October 27, 2010, http://www. 21 Danh Vo, quoted in Danh Vo: Go Mo Ni Ma Da, edited by Fabrice art-agenda.com/reviews/danh-vos-all-your-deeds-shall-in-water-be- Hergott and Angeline Scherf, exh. cat. (Paris: Éditions Dialecta; writ-but-this-in-marble-at-isabella-bortolozzi-galerie-berlin/. Paris: Musée d’Art modern de la Ville de Paris, 2014), p. 6. 8 Danh Vo, “Interview with Danh Vo,” interview by Timothée Chaillou, 22 “Danh Vo—We the People,” National Gallery of Denmark, May 27, Flash Art, September 23, 2013, https://www.flashartonline.com/2013/ 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8glrGJxpo9A. 09/danh-vo-24-09-2013-interview/. 23 Angeline Scherf, Danh Vo: Go Mo Ni Ma Da, p. 10. 9 Danh Vo, quoted in “Danh Vo: In Memory of Forgetting,” 24 Vo, “A Question of Freedom.” Deutsche Bank, accessed December 28, 2017, http://db-artmag. 25 com/en/57/feature/danh-vo-in-memory-of-forgetting/. “Danh Vo—We the People.” 26 10 Vo, “Interview with Danh Vo." Ibid. 27 11 “1975: Vietnam’s President Thieu Resigns,” BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/ Merriam-Webster, s.v. “repoussé (adj.),” accessed December 28, onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/21/newsid_2935000/2935347.stm. 2017, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/repousse. 12 Danh Vo, Danh Vo: Mothertongue (Venice: Venice Biennale; Copenhagen: Danish Arts Foundation, 2015), p. 12.