Nguyen Huy An Works on Paper 2005 – 2025

Honored to curate a “semi-retrospective” of Nguyen Huy An in Hanoi, while reflecting on the importance of his works within the development of Vietnamese contemporary arts in recent years.

In shaping this exhibition we went through his 20 years worth of career, including early sketches and never-before-seen pieces, for a selection of over 80 works on display. This was done all within the span of the last 2 months. I have never worked with a venue in Hanoi as a curator before, especially not for a project of this caliber, so this was a great learning curve.

Thank you anh An, Art30 Gallery and everyone else who have been a part of this process.

Exhibition opens tomorrow at Art 30, 30 Quang Trung, Cua Nam, Hanoi and runs until 08.28.2026.

Ceci n'est pas une guerre – This is Not a War at Eli Klein Gallery (May 23 – August 23, 2025)

Honored to have Leaner (2025) and Dependable Distance (2019) being shown with a lot of Vietnamese artist I know at Eli Klein Gallery.

Exhibition runs from May 23 – August 23, 2025, with an open reception on Friday May 23, 2025 6-8PM

"THE FOLIAGE IV" (September 16, 2022 to November 31, 2022)

PRESS RELEASE

The exhibition “THE FOLIAGE IV” opens a series of artists' proposals based on scientific research to suggest new perspectives on the relationship between plant life and the human world. offers different perspectives on history and the present, shifting the focus between humans and plants in artistic experiences, toward a more reciprocal form of a caring relationship.

The works are structured into four parts, the first dealing directly with the history and culture of forestry development, the second working through the emotional relationships between humans and plants, the third offers suggestions for untapped potential links between plants and human life, meanwhile, the fourth model offers a futuristic dystopian world where humans and nature blend together new forms of existence. While scholar Pujita Guha presents a series of retro images of the coffee forests of northern Thailand or Cian Dayrit tells the story of ethnic minorities in the Philippines, Duy Hoang connects with the sea through experience. Personal privacy with microscopic images of water droplets containing algae, James Prosek explores the marine world beyond the boundaries of man-made default visual names, and Oanh Phi Phi re-concepts time through the reflection of the aquarium using lacquer material. Or like Trevor Yeung bringing the tree into the main character, twisted by many forces, Rune Bosse brings viewers to the remaining images of the tree on the journey to the exhibition, Dao Van Hoang takes root, eats and sleeps rest under the invisible gaze of flora and fauna, and Tran Thao Mien reminds us that nature, after all, is still a witness and a place to keep the world's memories. “The artworks, research materials, and publications presented form a non-linear narrative that elucidates often ignored histories, and move us to a space of feeling and being with more-than-human worlds.” said curator Abhijan Toto.

Terranes curated by Jamie Martinez (September 20th to October 20th 2019)

PRESS RELEASE

TERRANES—Comparable to the shifting of tectonic plates resulting in the fruition of new variations and geological formations, Anh Thuy Nguyen, Adam Liam Rose and Frank Wang Yefeng’s pieces individually create alternative and well-cultivated perspectives pertaining to political relationships, social dynamics and cultural conflicts by pushing past and against the normalcy that has been cemented and engrained in human consciousness by society. Together, their works interact to produce an immersive infusion: a blend of disparate mediums—sculptures, drawings, and video—that interconnect and inform one another with the underlying commonality of shedding light onto significant and polarizing issues.

Anh Thuy Nguyen’s sculptures focus on the relationship between objects and objects, which act as bodies within a space, in order to “render the aporia of belonging/dis-belonging and togetherness/separation.” In both An Act of Simultaneous Looking and Dependable Distance, the flesh-hued silicone covered objects (pipes and stone respectively) refer to human [fragility] against the harsh steel structures bolstering the forms. While the visceral tension between materials creates striking compositions, the pieces themselves are also meant to be viewed in a performative manner. Nguyen's works require one to imaginatively strap themselves onto or into the forms, prompting a restricting and burdening experience, therefore physically realizing an allegory of spatial relation by means of objects and one's own body.

With encapsulating structures acting as a forefront to Adam Liam Rose’s installations, Stages of Fallout (2019) reveals another interpretation of his works as a series of drawings based on The Family Fallout Shelter (a guide made by the US Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization in 1959). Accessing influence from the political relationship between Israel, Palestine and the United States, his artworks are physical manifestations of his erudite study of “aesthetic systems of power embedded within architecture”. Rose's drawings are intimate and delicate, evoking a sense of a slight voyeuristic gaze into an ambiguous, architectural depiction of rough graphite textures and chiaroscuro contrasts.

[’penthaus], a synchronized video installation on loop, provokes an elaborate stew of emotions: perplexity in conjunction with curiosity, filtered through tension and discomfort. Frank Wang Yefeng’s skilled use of 3D animation in conglomeration with his eery content provides surrealistic and cryptic realms of fantasy and realism. Inspired by a story in the old Chinese book A New Account of Tales of the World, Yefeng’s production of symbols (pig, pants, and house) alludes to his personal experience of moving to the States from China. “The virtual spaces are both macroscopic and microscopic, the time is both moving and still[...]”—the video, similarly to his other works, provides a hallucinatory and ephemeral voyage as the viewers fall into a delusional stupor.

Download full PRESS RELEASE

Mezzanine curated by We Narrated Us (September 13 - September 22, 2019)

PRESS RELEASE [DOWNLOAD]

Mezzanine

September 13 - September 22, 2019 (Monday to Friday 12-6pm, Weekend 11am-6pm)

Ground Floor Gallery Space, Pfizer Building (630 Flushing Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11206)

Opening reception: Friday, September 13, 6-9pm (Performance by Pei-ling Ho at 7:30pm)

Panel discussion: Asian women artists in the context of the social and institutional structure

(Thursday, September 19, 6:30 - 8:00pm)

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BROOKLYN, NY – We narrate us is pleased to announce, Mezzanine, a group exhibition co-curated by Jennifer (Chia-ling) Ho and Min Sun Jeon featuring works by Furen Dai, Moko Fukuyama, Pei-Ling Ho, Hai-Hsin Huang, Qinmin Liu, Anh Thuy Nguyen, Hyunjung Rhee, and Joanna Tam.

In the United States, “Asiatic femininity1” has recently been brought to the surface of the ongoing discussion around race, gender, and immigration. The western canon has stereotyped Asiatic femininity as opulent, sensual, oriental, excessive, feminine, passive, decadent, cultural possessive and ornamental. However, how does Asian female identity exist separately from the scope of the historically western lens?

Mezzanine is an exhibition comprised of contemporary women artists from East and Southeast Asia living in the US, sharing their stories with their own voice. Society narrates us into roles that can be overwhelmingly difficult to break free. Growing up in Asia and coming to the US to pursue their artistic career has led these artists to construct the assertion and reflection of themselves with the pre-imposed barriers and conflicts of being an immigrant, and being a woman. Featured artists not only challenge the pre-existing western perspectives of the yellow women, but also the conventional idea of what it means to be an Asian woman.

For many Asian female immigrants, the nail salon industry has been a dependable entry point in the American job market. Moko Fukuyama’s visual narrative highlights both the intimacy and detachment of an encounter between the nail salon patron and practitioner. Furen Dai compares men in the marriage market to art objects in the art market as they are both precious and desirable. Dai unveils the social phenomena and industries behind the collective anxiety around marital pressures in China. Joanna Tam’s sculpture and performance respond to the immigration enforcement policy in the US and questions their supposed functions to maintain justice, provide shelter, and facilitate migration.

The “New York dream” could sometimes be an illusion of social and economic inclusivity for artists. Through playful and melancholy paintings, Hai-Hsin Huang observes the everyday life in New York from the foreign perspective of what separately Americans and Asians might perceive as peculiar or mundane. Seemingly an unachievable dream, Qinmin Liu founded the first artist-run airline, Angelhaha Airline in 2017 as an interactive performative experience that flies passengers specifically to art events. Seeing her art practice as an enterprise, Liu does not play by the rules and demonstrates how art can empower women.

As an affective exploration of conflict and frustration at life between different cultures, these artists reimagine and embody the many contradictions of race, gender, communication, and belonging. Anh Thuy Nguyen constantly re-examines and negotiates the proximity between belonging and dis-belonging, affiliation and estrangement through objects and materials that hold contrast and contradictory to one another, both formally and allegorically. Pei-Ling Ho explores the development of gender identity and family structure under the influence of Confucianism. Ho’s interactive performance unravels the bond and boundary between a mother and a daughter. Hyunjung Rhee’s kinetic sculpture embodies glitches in communication and the breaks in transmission space. Shouting underwater, volatile expressions and emotions become distorted, obscured, and eventually purified.

Mezzanine is an architectural term for the space between floors. The title, Mezzanine, is a metaphor of being in a state of in-between different cultural, social, and political structures. By imposing diverse social issues and innate conflicts from distinctive perspectives of immigrants, Asian women artists, this exhibition invites us to start an open and genuine dialogue on the expectations and struggles within this identity.

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We narrate us is an ongoing project, a discussion on Asian women artists in New York started by Jennifer (Chia-ling) Ho and Min Sun Jeon. The project aims to initiate a conversation on the diverse and complex experiences living as an Asian female in the US. Instead of seeking for a singular representation of “Asian female”, the project wishes to encourage artists with different cultural experiences to

ORGANON curated by Banyi Huang at Assembly Room (June 18, 2019 - June 22nd, 2019) Opening Reception: June 18, 6-9pm

ORGANON

Anh Thuy Nguyen

June 18, 2019 - June 22nd, 2019

Opening Reception: June 18, 6-9pm

Assembly Room is pleased to present Organon, a solo exhibition showcasing the most recent body of work by Anh Thuy Nguyen, curated by Banyi Huang.

In Elements of a Philosophy of Technology: On the Evolutionary History of Culture (1877), German philosopher Ernst Kapp theorizes that the evolution of culture and technology is rooted in the human instinct to produce tools, a faculty that he defines as “organ projection”. ‘Organon’, the Greek word for organ, designates both technical instruments and bodily organs, and by extension, exteriority and interiority. It assigns a sense of the organic and the sensual to machinic apparatuses, and vice versa. In fact, this charged point of contact between the body and tools can be found throughout Anh Thuy Nguyen’s sculptural work, whether in the form of prosthetic extensions, umbilical cords, or palpable bodily imprints.

In Mobile Necessity (2019), three metal panels, each equipped with handles or straps, stand at roughly human height. Just a little shorter than the average American. While the straps gesture toward a wearable, semi-functional object, the rigidness of the material resists being handled or moved. Reversed silicon molds of body parts—hips, shoulders, and mouth—caressing in their soft, fleshly qualities, seems to pull the viewer in, yet the juxtaposition between the cold, hard metal surface and bodily imprints reinforces an unnerving sense of pain and brutality.

Meet by Touch (2017-2018) circulates the sensuous underpinnings of sitting, leaning, and feeding by way of durational performance and documentation. During a whole year, Thuy and another artist exchanged imprints of their body parts through between Hanoi, Vietnam, and New York City, forming a postponed articulation of intimacy. Such vast, changing geographical distances between participating individuals are secured at a fixed length in Semiotics of Distance (2017). In it, two metal stands, each topped by a broken piece from a traditional Vietnamese aluminum platter, are attached via a silicon tube resembling an umbilical cord. Both works map out the persistent need for connection, when physical proximity is no longer a given. For the artist, consciousness always comes after the fact. Through the laborious practice of producing artifacts and relating to them through performative gestures, Nguyen attempts to map out the ghostly, ever-fluctuating after-image of the human interior.

Banyi Huang (born in Beijing) is an independent curator, writer, and designer based in New York. Graduating from Columbia’s MODA program studying art history and curatorial work, she is interested in exploring the intersection between digital media, technology, and the gendered performative body, as well as decolonizing discourses and Asian diaspora identity. She has realized curatorial projects at PRACTICE Yonkers, Assembly Room, and BRIC, and has completed curatorial internships at the Guggenheim Museum and Whitney Museum. She is a regular contributor to the Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, ArtAsiaPacific, and OCULA magazine.

Anh Thuy Nguyen (b.1993) is a visual artist from Hanoi, Viet Nam. She earned an M.F.A in Interdisciplinary Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts (2018) and a B.A in Studio Art and English (Writing) from DePauw University (2015). Anh Thuy has exhibited at Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery, Sotheby's Institute of Art, BOSI Contemporary, Radiator Gallery, Chinatown Soup Gallery, The Java Project, Pfizer Factory, Trestle Gallery, Nha San Collective (Hanoi, Viet Nam) among others. Residency includes Brooklyn Art Space, Vermont Studio Center. Anh Thuy is the recipient of institutional awards for the art: Prindle Institute Prize for Exceptional Visual Art Project related to Ethics (2015) and Efroymson Fellowship Grant (2014). Anh Thuy Nguyen is based in Brooklyn, NY, where she is currently a member of Brooklyn Art Space –Trestle Projects and Adjunct Professor at Hudson County Community College (NJ).

To download Press Release from Assembly Room please check Link

The Cured curated by Tansy Xiao at Radiator Gallery (June 7th - August 11th, 2019). Opening Reception: June 7th, 2019 6 pm - 9 pm

I am honored to be included in this group exhibition curated by the talented Tansy Xiao, along side with Kathy High, Pablo Garcia Lopez, Eva Petric and also the influential bio artist of American art history Suzanne Anker. Please find the press release written by Tansy Xiao below

Radiator Gallery is thrilled to announce The Cured, a group show featuring 5 artists whose works delineate the coherent relationship between social politics and the ethics of biological studies situated in a postmodern context, in the hope of raising the questions on the dynamic and ambiguous nature of being human.

As classic philosophy fades away, said Heidegger, cybernetics becomes a philosophy for the twentieth century. Heidegger claimed that, full-blown technicism dissolves even objectivity, turning beings into “standing reserve” in the service of the will to power. Its application on biology is apparent: medical systems were established in order to control. From the notorious lobotomy to your everyday orthodontic braces, state-funded medical researches have turned into either propaganda or profitable commodities. The entire society expects to be cured, corrected, and optimized.

In fact, the ethical concerns in biological researches have always been controversial: to which extend do we allow technology to rewrite nature, in order to create and to meet new criteria of living, and how far can we go. Back in the days, the racial policy of Nazi Germany developed a set of policies and laws based on a specific racist doctrine asserting the superiority of the Aryan race, which claimed scientific legitimacy. With the new acquisition of power of genetic modification today, by suggesting that one set of genes is superior to another, we’re still skating on thin ice.  

As Eva Petric placed the tissues of a real human heart under a crystal dome, the artist reminds us that a heart can survive alone in a container of oxygen. But is the functioning of vital organs really a life? The debates on the necessity of euthanasia have been brought to the public attention more than ever before. Pablo Garcia Lopez on the other hand combined microscopic images of brain cells with fragments from Goya’s bleak and haunting Black Paintings that were associated with PTSD, illustrating the weaponization of modern day neuroscience. By magnifying the images of stem cells, Suzanne Anker centers the consideration of the ethics of research involving the development, use, and destruction of human embryos. However our own species is not the only one that has been impacted by the biological studies. Kathy High created delicate glass globes in the shape of white blood cells, hosting the ashes of transgenic lab rats to ritualize their contribution to science in a sympathetic way. Last but not least, an installation that includes two shoulder pads with the texture of flesh and blood, suggesting a trapped body in the size of the artist’s own--Anh Thuy Nguyen visualizes the political nature of a body and narrates the dilemma between a preassigned identity and a chosen one.

*A large percentage of sales from selected artworks will be donated to local charities including The Fibromuscular Dysplasia Society of America & The Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing.

June 7th - August 11th, 2019

Opening Reception: June 7th, 2019 6 pm - 9 pm

Radiator Gallery

10-61 Jackson Ave, Long Island City, NY 11106

A Dichotomy of Desire – A duo exhibition at Chinatown Soup Gallery April 18 to 28th. Open Reception April 18 6-9pm

From April 18th to 28th 2019, Chinatown Soup is pleased to present A Dichotomy of Desire, a duo exhibition featuring works by two artists, Shohei Kondo and Anh Thuy Nguyen curated by Angie Phrasavath. The opening reception will be held on Thursday, April 18th from 6pm to 9pm.

While desire is a universal inquiry for artistic exploration, Kondo and Nguyen are unique in their approach. Simultaneously investigating the subject of desire in relation to the body, and through object oriented methodology, each artist contrasts in tone and proximity to their

subject. Laughter and pain, humor and seriousness, the duo presents a dichotomy of visual lyricism that is direct and individualistic in response to a much-spoken subject in history.

Kondo’s rigorous and colorful paintings bear the influence of the Pop Art of 1960s and

Simulationism of the 1980s. His work expresses a distance from the body by handmade brush strokes that have been perfected to match the appearance of mechanical production. In his paintings, representations of the bodies in sexual poses and cultural taboo are flattened, even abstracted into computer-like sketches, rendering the subject casual and comical. Kondo’s work mocks the cultural ideology of eroticism by remarks of pleasure, laughter and relief.

Anh Thuy Nguyen’s sculptures maintain a dramatic abjection. As opposed to Kondo’s approach, Nguyen’s practice dwells in the body within which the material of the subject is visceral,

unremoved. Fleshy silicone paired with solid, cold metal, Nguyen’s sculptural “body tools” encourage imagination of a desired longing between the bodies they apply, while refuting real chance of closing their actual distance. Her work probes the contemporary aporia of desire which is scaffolded by agony and impossibility.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Shohei Kondo (b. 1986, Japan) is a New York-based artist from Japan. His work has been exhibited internationally and venues including, Amakei Gallery (Japan), China Academy of Arts Museum (China), and SVA Chelsea Gallery (United States). He is the recipient of the Sanwa Award (Japan) and his work is in private collections in the United States and Japan. Kondo holds a BA in Film Studies from Takarazuka University of Arts and MFA Fine Art from School of Visual Arts in New York.

Anh Thuy Nguyen (b.1993) is an artist from Hanoi, Viet Nam. She earned an M.F.A in Fine Art from School of Visual Arts (2018) and a B.A in Studio Art and English (Writing) from DePauw University (2015). Anh Thuy has exhibited at Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery, Sotheby’s Institute of Art (New York), BOSI Contemporary, The Java Project, Pfizer Factory, Trestle Gallery, Nha San Collective (Hanoi, Viet Nam) among others. Residencies include Brooklyn Art Space, Vermont Studio Center. Anh Thuy Nguyen is currently a member of Brooklyn Art Space –Trestle Projects and Adjunct Professor at Hudson County Community College (NJ).

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Angie Phrasavath (b. 1995) is from Newport, Rhode Island. She obtained her B.A. in both Political Science and Art

History from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. From there, she earned her M.A. from Sotheby’s Institute of Art in Art Business. She is currently the Growth Manager of Eazel, a technology platform focused on accessibility and education for the visual arts based in New York. She also writes and conducts interviews about modern and contemporary art.

Semiotics of Distance Live Performance on May 5th 2018 during the Opening of Tactics, Works, Terms, Forms, Statements

My piece Semiotics of Distance in performance at 371 Broadway during the opening of Tactics, Works, Terms, Forms, Statements curated by Kari Conte. Performance by Shohei Kondo and Roberto Vega. Photos by Georgette Maniatis

School of Visual Arts MFA Fine Arts – Tactics, Works, Terms, Forms, Statements – Open Reception May 5th 2018

My honor to celebrate with my peers from School of Visual Arts MFA Fine Arts Thesis show  titled Tactics, Works, Terms, Forms, Statements curated by Kari Conte. Open Reception with Performance on Saturday, May 5, 6-10pm at 371 Broadway, Manhattan. 

For more information about the show please visit http://www.sva.edu/events/events-exhibitions/mfa-fine-arts-thesis-exhibition-2018

School of Visual Arts MFA Fine Arts Thesis Presentation Nearness

My brief presentation for my thesis projects titled "Nearness" with questions from faculties and my peers at School of Visual Arts MFA Fine Arts department at the end.
Video by Owen Keogh

"Illimitation" a group exhibition at Color Box Space (Hangzhou, China) Opening December 12th 2017

It is my honor to have my video piece "To Cleanse" be a part of a group exhibition curated by Michael Yu Zhen at Color Box Space Gallery Hangzhou, China. Open reception December 12th 2017 at 4pm