photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle BaselA giant applesauce can, feathers, pants, a
paper clip, a table, and tape. Or cable ties, cloth
cord, doll clothes, paper napkins, and steel
wire: these are the stuff of Phung-Tien Phan’s
newest body of sculptures. They bear titles
such as Charlie, Nicolas, or Takeshi—the first
names of men, nearly one and all. Shiny marble
slabs topped with rocks and wonky, antennalike wires conceal (at first view) the interiors of
the sculptures’ hollow wooden forms. Like
little ad hoc versions of the sorts of Buddhist
altars popular among the Asian diaspora,
they are replete with occasional shelves and
offerings that contain within them clues to
their respective titles: in most are nestled doll
clothing along with one or more digitally printed internet-sourced image of a Hollywood
actor in one of his seminal movie roles, in one
case next to a popular soft drink. The display
of these elements is odd: too low to be properly
seen without kneeling, but put together with
such meticulous attention to the fold in a tiny
pair of pants or the angled positioning of mini
plastic shoes that one could never mistake it
for being offhand. To inspect the items present- ed is to quickly understand that “Charlie”
is actor Charlie Sheen, who plays a newly re- cruited soldier in the 1986 film Platoon, and
“George” is actor George Clooney, in the
role of a military intelligence lieutenant in the
1997 film The Peacemaker. Performing as either
saviors or villains, they embody pop-cultural
archetypes of heroic masculinity. But do the
roles we play determine who we are? How is
identity formed anyway, and what forces shape
it? Phan quietly unpicks these questions across
her exhibition.
Here, as elsewhere in her practice, idiosyncratic
combinations of everyday things are placed
in precarious balance. Sometimes the elements
seem so perilously assembled that a slight
push would topple them. Or a component will
dangle so casually as if to suggest an after-thought. The whole of this young German Vietnamese artist’s practice is arguably
characterized by the dogged pursuit of creating
artworks—whether sculpture or video or
installation—that refuse preciousness, refuse
the slick aura of commodity perfection,
and, ultimately, refuse to take themselves too
seriously. For all this seeming nonchalance,
they tackle weighty themes like diasporic
experience, family, identity, or even societal
notions of masculine heroism; and more
often than not, they do this through the lens
of Phan’s biography. What at first may have
appeared like afterthoughts, then, are no afterthoughts at all. Precisely these ephemeral
elements are what give her art an insouciant
allure and its critical thrust. Despite the
projected strength, confidence, and resolution
of the stock images of her male hero figures,
the shrine-like sculptures that Phan has made
show them to be little more than rickety,
hollow constructs.
combinations of everyday things are placed
in precarious balance. Sometimes the elements
seem so perilously assembled that a slight
push would topple them. Or a component will
dangle so casually as if to suggest an after-thought. The whole of this young German Vietnamese artist’s practice is arguably
characterized by the dogged pursuit of creating
artworks—whether sculpture or video or
installation—that refuse preciousness, refuse
the slick aura of commodity perfection,
and, ultimately, refuse to take themselves too
seriously. For all this seeming nonchalance,
they tackle weighty themes like diasporic
experience, family, identity, or even societal
notions of masculine heroism; and more
often than not, they do this through the lens
of Phan’s biography. What at first may have
appeared like afterthoughts, then, are no afterthoughts at all. Precisely these ephemeral
elements are what give her art an insouciant
allure and its critical thrust. Despite the
projected strength, confidence, and resolution
of the stock images of her male hero figures,
the shrine-like sculptures that Phan has made
show them to be little more than rickety,
hollow constructs.
But look closely. Among them is one not quite
like the others. The pictured reference is not
a Hollywood actor; what we see is not a digital
printout of a famous face found on the World
Wide Web. Instead, one of the sculptures,
Fallen Angels 2, contains a black and white pass- port photograph of the artist’s own father as
a young boy, taped to a snapshot of a combat jet
in flight whose flares are reminiscent of an
angel’s wings. Near it, too, a doll’s outfit lies.
What kind of hero is a father, an immigrant,
a worker, an ordinary extraordinary man? Scat- tered between the various “hero” sculptures
in the exhibition’s main room, one encounters
a lone hammock, cradling clothes belonging
to the artist herself (obviously full-sized, in
this case). Phan lays out her clothes to suggest
that the body that would have worn them was
lounging, at ease, relaxing amidst this field
of sculptures devoted to masculine archetypes.
like the others. The pictured reference is not
a Hollywood actor; what we see is not a digital
printout of a famous face found on the World
Wide Web. Instead, one of the sculptures,
Fallen Angels 2, contains a black and white pass- port photograph of the artist’s own father as
a young boy, taped to a snapshot of a combat jet
in flight whose flares are reminiscent of an
angel’s wings. Near it, too, a doll’s outfit lies.
What kind of hero is a father, an immigrant,
a worker, an ordinary extraordinary man? Scat- tered between the various “hero” sculptures
in the exhibition’s main room, one encounters
a lone hammock, cradling clothes belonging
to the artist herself (obviously full-sized, in
this case). Phan lays out her clothes to suggest
that the body that would have worn them was
lounging, at ease, relaxing amidst this field
of sculptures devoted to masculine archetypes.
In the exhibition’s second room, the artist’s
newest video, Toni (2023), extends the thematic
of the self as an identity under construction. It
continues as well the artist’s practice of making
lo-fi videos with her hand-held smartphone,
recording images of mundane life coupled with
tongue-in-cheek, stream-of-conscious mono- logues. This one begins with the artist vocalizing the sort of guided meditation used in hyp- nosis that roughly translates from German
as: “Relax your legs and loosely place them side
by side. Place your hands on your thighs. Breathe
deeply, and enter into a trance.” Meanwhile,
Phan’s meandering lens takes us from an extreme close-up of the puckered lips and rashreddened face of her newborn baby boy (the
film’s namesake) to domestic spaces, and to
family photographs, only to land on the repetitive grid of a ceiling—shot from the baby’s
perspective—reminiscent of an airport corridor
or public transport underpass. Amongst the
family photographs is a handful in which it is unclear whether you are looking at the artist or
her mother or both (in fact, both do make ap- pearances), while the artist narrates a list of the
various identities or “types” that might de- scribe them: “Corporate-New-York-Girl,”
“Settle-Down-Girl,” “Move-to-France-and Learn-French-Girl.” One can’t help but wonder:
if Toni is the film’s unsuspecting identity-in the-making, are the various identities of his
mother and mother’s mother tangled up in how
women traditionally have allowed men to play
the “hero”?
newest video, Toni (2023), extends the thematic
of the self as an identity under construction. It
continues as well the artist’s practice of making
lo-fi videos with her hand-held smartphone,
recording images of mundane life coupled with
tongue-in-cheek, stream-of-conscious mono- logues. This one begins with the artist vocalizing the sort of guided meditation used in hyp- nosis that roughly translates from German
as: “Relax your legs and loosely place them side
by side. Place your hands on your thighs. Breathe
deeply, and enter into a trance.” Meanwhile,
Phan’s meandering lens takes us from an extreme close-up of the puckered lips and rashreddened face of her newborn baby boy (the
film’s namesake) to domestic spaces, and to
family photographs, only to land on the repetitive grid of a ceiling—shot from the baby’s
perspective—reminiscent of an airport corridor
or public transport underpass. Amongst the
family photographs is a handful in which it is unclear whether you are looking at the artist or
her mother or both (in fact, both do make ap- pearances), while the artist narrates a list of the
various identities or “types” that might de- scribe them: “Corporate-New-York-Girl,”
“Settle-Down-Girl,” “Move-to-France-and Learn-French-Girl.” One can’t help but wonder:
if Toni is the film’s unsuspecting identity-in the-making, are the various identities of his
mother and mother’s mother tangled up in how
women traditionally have allowed men to play
the “hero”?
The artist positions a hammock in the final
room of the exhibition. Here again, laid out in
it are the artist’s clothes, stuffed with tissue
paper so as to insinuate the body that once inhabited them. It’s such a simple gesture but
a weirdly touching one, too: a playful reversal
of centuries of figurative sculpture in which
materials like stone or plaster convey the body
as hardened and whole. It is surrounded by
photographic prints, picturing the artist’s
father at the funeral of an uncle. One of the
images made its first appearance in the video,
where already you might have noticed that
one man, her father, somehow stands out from
the crowd of mourners. He might be amongst
family, but he is out of place, although it’s not
quite clear why. Is it his clothing or posture?
Do “clothes make the man,” as the saying goes?
room of the exhibition. Here again, laid out in
it are the artist’s clothes, stuffed with tissue
paper so as to insinuate the body that once inhabited them. It’s such a simple gesture but
a weirdly touching one, too: a playful reversal
of centuries of figurative sculpture in which
materials like stone or plaster convey the body
as hardened and whole. It is surrounded by
photographic prints, picturing the artist’s
father at the funeral of an uncle. One of the
images made its first appearance in the video,
where already you might have noticed that
one man, her father, somehow stands out from
the crowd of mourners. He might be amongst
family, but he is out of place, although it’s not
quite clear why. Is it his clothing or posture?
Do “clothes make the man,” as the saying goes?
Phan’s appetite for turning the domestic
and ordinary into art makes nearly anything
and everything fodder for her practice. Or
everything, that is, but the lowly vegetable
that gives the exhibition its name. Kartoffel
(meaning “potato” in German), Phan’s first solo show in Switzerland, might, on the
surface, seem to have nothing to do with potatoes. But one cannot so easily separate
the larger questions of identity at the heart
of this exhibition from the very specific
questions regarding identity experienced by
this daughter of Vietnamese immigrant workers who raised her as a first-generation
German-born citizen. “Kartoffel!” The insult (or ironic term of endearment) is meant
to refer to Germans that are considered
somehow authentically “German.” And no
matter that Phan was born in Germany,
has a German passport, and has lived there
for all her life, her name and appearance make
it unlikely that the artist would ever be called
Kartoffel. Using the term for her exhibition
subtly reminds us that identity is a construct
that does not necessarily come from within.
Nor can we so easily decide to change it, like
a pair of pants you can just put on or take
off. Instead, identity is something that others at
times confer upon you, whether you like it
or not.
and ordinary into art makes nearly anything
and everything fodder for her practice. Or
everything, that is, but the lowly vegetable
that gives the exhibition its name. Kartoffel
(meaning “potato” in German), Phan’s first solo show in Switzerland, might, on the
surface, seem to have nothing to do with potatoes. But one cannot so easily separate
the larger questions of identity at the heart
of this exhibition from the very specific
questions regarding identity experienced by
this daughter of Vietnamese immigrant workers who raised her as a first-generation
German-born citizen. “Kartoffel!” The insult (or ironic term of endearment) is meant
to refer to Germans that are considered
somehow authentically “German.” And no
matter that Phan was born in Germany,
has a German passport, and has lived there
for all her life, her name and appearance make
it unlikely that the artist would ever be called
Kartoffel. Using the term for her exhibition
subtly reminds us that identity is a construct
that does not necessarily come from within.
Nor can we so easily decide to change it, like
a pair of pants you can just put on or take
off. Instead, identity is something that others at
times confer upon you, whether you like it
or not.