RED, a painting exhibition Henry Codax, Vương Tử Lâm, Olivier Mosset Curatorship: The Observatory HCMC

Nguyen Duc Diem Quynh, "Red memoirs", 2014

 

 

兼容的盒子计划第七十一期 bazaar compatible program #71
31°12.246'N 121°25.010'E
红，一个绘画展览 RED, a painting exhibition
Henry Codax, Vương Tử Lâm, Olivier Mosset
策展： HCMC 观察室 curated by The Observatory HCMC
2014/05/06 - 2014/05/18
安顺路98号 小商品市场内26号铺 Shanghai, 98 Anshun Road, stall 26

This project follows the exhibition entitled "RED", organized by Bob Nickas in 1986 in New York, that aimed to bring works together through emphasising their autonomy without being enslaved to the curator's speech. The color red is a pretext, the only common feature between the different works. It became possible to look at the artworks to see what they are, as separate entities.

Monochromatic painting is the most radical topic concerning abstraction for art historians and still is a way to resist against the world of images. But how do we look at a monochrome in a country where there is neither a culture nor an history about that kind of painting, but where the (red) color is ubiquitous both in traditions and everyday life?

Monochrome painting is a way used by artists to neutralize the color and to show it like it really is: without any meaning, in its primal state. That's how the paintings of the "RED" exhibitions are aimed to be looked at in order to finally regain the color released from any symbol or any concept.

This new episode of the show "RED" was held recently in Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City) and is now taking place here in China (Shanghai); two countries where the red color is deeply embedded in history. Contexts are changing during the displacement from West to East (USA, Europe, South East Asia then Far East) of the exhibition and its principle and can obviously have an impact on how the artworks are looked at, but they always remain the same; neutrals.

Frédéric Dialynas Sanchez
Shanghai, April 29, 2014