Danh Vo in Conversation with Hendrik Folkerts, 10/3/18 - SAIC's Visiting Artists Program

Vietnamese-born Danish artist Danh Vo draws upon his and others’ biographies and aspects of political history and social memory to dissect the forces that affect our lives in overt and unexamined ways. He analyzes the structures and processes that shape our identities, such as the American dream, capitalist culture, civic bureaucracy, colonial history, migration, and religion. Through his approach, the artist’s family history-which arcs from wartime Vietnam through displacement and immigration to Europe-is used as a readymade material, intertwining with the many other lives and deaths spanning centuries and continents evoked throughout his works. Danh Vo discusses his practice with Hendrik Folkerts, Dittmer Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago.