In the forest by Le Brothers

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In t he f orest

LÊ BROTHERS

Sinh năm 1975 tại tỉnh Quảng Bình, Lê Ngọc Thanh và Lê Đức Hải (Lê Brothers) được biết tới như những

nghệ sĩ sơn mài Việt Nam sáng tác về chủ đề chiến tranh. Cả hai tốt nghiệp Đại học Nghệ thuật Huế năm 2000, nơi Lê Ngọc Thanh học chuyên ngành sơn mài, còn Lê Đức Hải chọn sơn dầu.

Sau quá trình khám phá việc vẽ tranh, Lê Brothers bắt đầu thử nghiệm với nghệ thuật trình diễn và video art, với nhiều tác phẩm xoay quanh những ẩn dụ về sự tương đồng. Các sáng tác của cặp song sinh đề cập đến vấn đề miền Nam – miền Bắc Việt Nam, cũng như những vùng lãnh thổ khác đã/đang bị chia cắt. Lê Brothers gây ấn tượng bởi cách tiếp cận độc đáo của họ tới các vấn đề lịch sử, căn tính, cũng như những giải thích về lịch sử trong bối cảnh hiện tại.

Lê Brothers đã trưng bày và trình diễn tại nhiều địa điểm trong nước và quốc tế, bao gồm The Nord gallerie tại Berlin (2018), Vietnam Eye in START tại Saatchi Gallery ở London (2017) Trung tâm Nghệ thuật Jim Thompson ở Bangkok (2016), Bảo tàng Nghệ thuật Gwangju (2016), Bảo tàng nghệ thuật đương đại Kumamoto ở Nhật Bản (2015), The Live Performance Biennale 2015 ở Canada, Palais de Tokyo

ở Paris (2015), Bảo tàng Queens (2015), Hiệp hội nghệ

sĩ thị giác Croatia ở Zagreb (2015), Iran CP Biennale (2014), Không gian nghệ thuật FreeS ở Đài Bắc, Đài Loan (2014), Singapore Biennale (2013). Các dự án

được chọn bao gồm ‘The Bridge II’, biểu diễn tại DMZ Gang Hwa, Hàn Quốc (2012), ‘Before’ 86 ‘, Cheongju Complex Cultural Center, Korea (2012), “Giao tiếp với thời đại”, Saigon Open City, Vietnam (2006), “Window to Asian” Vietnam (2001)...

Các tác phẩm của họ được sưu tập bởi các bảo tàng và nhà sưu tập cá nhân trong nước và quốc tế, như Bảo tàng Nghệ thuật đương đại Singapore, Bảo tàng Nghệ thuật Gwangju và Trung tâm Nghệ thuật Jim Thompson

Năm 2000, Lê Brothers thành lập phòng tranh riêng, và dựa trên nền tảng đó, mở ra chương trình nghệ sĩ lưu trú đầu tiên của Việt Nam – New Art Space Foundation (2008). New Art Space đã có nhiều đóng góp trong việc

LÊ BROTHERS

Thanh Le Ngoc and Hai Le Duc (Le Brothers), born in 1975 in the Quang Binh Province, were first noticed as the artists of Vietnamese lacquer painting of war topics. In 2000 both graduated from the Hue College of Arts.

After painting, the artists started creating performances and video works highlighting the metaphor of similarity. Many of their works speak of the issue of Southern and Northern Vietnam and other places that were or are divided. The Le Brothers are known for their unique approach to history, identity and the interpretation of the past in the present. Le Brothers have exhibited and performed nationally and internationally, including, The Nord gallerie in Berlin (2018), Vietnam Eye in START at Saatchi Gallery in London (2017) The Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok (2016), Gwangju Museum of Art (2016), Kumamoto Contemporary Art Museum in Japan (2015),The Live Performance Biennale 2015 in Canada, Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2015), Queens Museum

(2015), the Croatian Association of Visual Artists in Zagreb (2015), Iran CP Biennale (2014), FreeS Art Space in Taipei, Taiwan (2014), Singapore Biennale (2013), Selected projects include ‘The Bridge II’, performance at DMZ Gang Hwa,Korea (2012),‘Before ‘86’, Cheongju Complex Cultural Center, Korea (2012), ‘Communicate with the times’, Saigon Open City, Vietnam (2006), ‘Window to Asian”Vietnam (2001)....

Their works are in numerous national and international private and museums collections, including the Singapore Contemporary Art, Museum Gwangju Museum of Art and The Jim Thompson Art Center.

The Le Brothers also have been connecting artists across the world through Vietnam’s first artists-inresidence program, the New Space Arts Foundation, which they launched in April 2008, from a gallery they founded in 2000.

The Le Brothers live with their families in Hue, Vietnam.

“Cây ơi mày bao nhiêu tuổi?”

- Lê Brothers“How old are you, tree?”

“Tự nhiên đẹp vì nó nhìn như Nghệ thuật,

và Nghệ thuật chỉ có thể coi là đẹp khi nhận

thức của chúng ta về vật phẩm Nghệ thuật

đó có dáng vẻ tương tự với Tự nhiên.”*

- Immanuel Kant -

- Le Brothers -

“Nature is beautiful because it looks like Art; and Art can only be called beautiful if we are conscious of it as Art while yet it looks like Nature.”*

- Immanuel Kant -

* Nguyên văn: “Nature is beautiful because it looks like Art; and Art can only be called beautiful if we are conscious of it as Art while yet it looks like Nature”.

- Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment.

* Source: Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment.

- The Red Project 2013, Trò chơiThe Game 2013/15, 365 Ngày - 365 Days 2014). Tôi từ đâu đến? (dự án Cây Cầu - The Bridge 2010, Những con số - The Number 2011, Ảo Ảnh - Illusion 2017/19). Mỗi câu hỏi đặt ra một mệnh đề với thời cuộc và thân phận, để rồi nghệ thuật được dùng như phương tiện để hồi

hay hoài nghi, để

qua các suy

về nguồn gốc, lịch sử cá nhân và cộng đồng, niềm tin và lý tưởng, quá khứ và hiện tại… và diễn giải sự trả lời bằng các hình thức nghệ thuật thị giác trong nhiều

chiều không gian và thời gian: những loạt tranh theo chủ đề được theo đuổi một cách trọn vẹn, tới ảnh

chụp kết hợp trình diễn kéo dài, những trình diễn ngoài thực địa theo ý tưởng của dự án tới trình diễn tương tác - ứng tác theo hoàn cảnh và không gian trên nhiều địa điểm, và các diễn giải - chuyển thể ở hình ảnh động dạng video và đa phương tiện.

During the long years of one’s

Looking back at Le Brothers’ body of works, it can be seen that they are simply endless conversations between the internal world and external objects and phenomena, which are engaged in by two people who are individual characters sharing one artistic identity. These conversations are a continuous attempt at answering age-old yet evergreen questions: Who am I? (Projects Trước 86 - Before 86 2011, Dự án Đỏ -

The Red Project 2013, Trò chơi - The Game 2013/15, 365 Ngày - 365 Days 2014). Where do I come from? (Projects Cây Cầu - The Bridge 2010, Những con số - The Number 2011, Ảo Ảnh - Illusion 2017/19).

Each of these questions put forward a statement on circumstance and identity, to which art was used as a vehicle for the artists’ answers. A new question would then appear and resume this endless cycle.

Completely different from the personal monologue of most artists, the reflection here occurred in the độc thoại cá nhân của nghệ sĩ thông thường, ở đây sự phản tư xảy ra ở hai bản thể song sinh chung nghệ danh Lê Brothers, cặp

twin entities that share one common identity of Le Brothers. The duo asked and simultaneously answered themselves through arguments, discussions, consensus, or suspicions. They do so in order to wander through contemplations on origins, on personal and communal histories, on faith and ideals, on the past and present. They interpreted their answers in the forms of spatially and temporally multidimensional visual arts: a series of thematic paintings which were pursued until completion, photography combined with long-running performances, field performances that corresponded to a project’s ideas and interactive-improvisational performances that corresponded to the contexts and spaces of different locations, interpretations and transformations using moving images in video and multimedia forms.

In the Forest, their most recent project, is an exception to their previous practices. While it is a conversation between the duo and the external world, unlike their previous works, it looks at the entities existing in the external world as subjects existing alongside the artists, not just a pretext to reflect a mind-body-spirit’s narrative.

“CÂY ƠI MÀY BAO NHIÊU TUỔI?”

“HOW

OLD ARE YOU, TREE?”

This question emerged from the mind of the two artists and frequently made its reappearances during numerous long trips, first to the forests in the Northern part of the Trường Sơn Mountain Range in the West of Thừa Thiên Huế Province, and subsequently to the more distant forests of other countries and continents. Stepping into an old forest, sitting under the canopy of ageless ancient trees, the shape of nature starts to spring forth internally, engraving its images into one’s headspace. Nature has always been there, but only then was it discovered. It’s a nature of both external and internal existences, which largely goes unrecognized, for an average person is often overwhelmed by the great vastness and richness of a natural landscape.

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In the Forest 14

Sơn dầu trên vải | Oil on canvas

160 x 200 cm | 2021 - 2023 11.900$

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In the Forest 16

Sơn dầu trên vải | Oil on canvas

160 x 200 cm | 2021 - 2023 11.900$

Như Martin Heidegger mô tả không thể chính xác

hơn: “ ‘Tự nhiên’ không được hiểu là cái có sẵn trong

hiện tại, cũng không phải là sức mạnh của Tự nhiên.

Gỗ là rừng gỗ, núi là mỏ đá; sông là sức nước, gió là gió ‘trong cánh buồm’. Khi ‘môi trường’ được phát

hiện, thì ‘Bản chất’ được phát hiện cũng vậy. Nếu ý nghĩa Tồn tại sẵn có của nó bị bỏ qua, thì bản thân ‘Bản chất’ này có thể được khám phá và định nghĩa một cách đơn giản là sự hiện diện thuần túy…”

This sentiment has been perfectly articulated by Martin Heidegger: “... ‘Nature’ is not to be understood as that which is just present-at-hand, nor as the power of Nature. The wood is a forest of timber, the mountain a quarry of rock; the river is water-power, the wind is wind ‘in the sails’. As the ‘environment’ is discovered, the ‘Nature’ thus discovered is encountered too. If its kind of Being as ready-to-hand is disregarded, this ‘Nature’ itself can be discovered and defined simply in its pure presence-at-hand...”

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In the Forest 18

Sơn dầu trên vải | Oil on canvas

160 x 200 cm | 2021 - 2023

11.900$

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In the Forest 10

Sơn dầu trên vải | Oil on canvas

160 x 200 cm | 2021 - 2023 11.900$

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In the Forest 13

Sơn dầu trên vải | Oil on canvas

160 x 200 cm | 2021 - 2023

11.900$

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In the Forest 24

Sơn dầu trên vải | Oil on canvas

120 x 160 cm | 2021 - 2023 6.900$

“CÂY ƠI MÀY BAO NHIÊU TUỔI?”

“HOW OLD ARE YOU, TREE?”

Câu hỏi không chỉ là câu hỏi, mà còn là sự nhận ra và khởi đầu tiến trình nhận biết. Con người tiếp nhận thông tin cơ bản do ngũ quan từ tai, mắt, mũi, miệng và đụng chạm của cơ thể, nhưng nhận thức đến bằng sự cảm nhận của trực giác, đi trực tiếp vào hệ hình của cảm xúc từ đó xây dựng dáng hình phi vật lí về đối tượng, để từ “biết” về sự hiện diện của đối tượng. Đặt mối quan tâm và tò mò vào một sự vật bên ngoài, là cách ta bắt đầu xây dựng nhận thức về đối tượng, để đi đến sự nhận ra đối tượng. Nhận ra sự tồn tại của một thực thể, một đời sống, một hệ hình và sinh thái to lớn tồn tại bên cạnh mình, và mình chỉ là một cá thể nhỏ trong đó. Sự “thấy” chính là “nhận ra” và nhận ra đồng thời cả đối tượng và bản thể trong hiện diện của cả hai, như John Berger nói: “Chúng ta không bao giờ chỉ nhìn vào một thứ; chúng ta luôn nhìn

This question is not just a question - it is also a recognition, the beginning of an awareness. A person receives basic information through the five senses provided by one’s ears, eyes, nose, mouth, and bodily touches. Awareness, however, arrives by the way of intuition, directly through emotional patterns from which a metaphysical form of the subject is formed. This is how the presence of a subject becomes “known”. Center our interest and curiosity around an external thing is how we start developing awareness

of a subject, how we approach the awareness of a subject. It’s recognizing the existence of an entity, of a life, of a pattern, and of a larger ecosystem existing alongside you, within which you are only a small individual.

“Seeing” is “recognizing” - a recognition of both the subject and the identity that exists in the presence of both you and the subject, as John Berger once said: “We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.” That is the start of this

new series of creations, which was initiated to interpret the feelings stemmed from the recognizing. Recognizing that Forest as an entity existing concurrently with the (twin) identity of the artists. Recognizing one’s existence within that quiet, lush, and vast identity. In the Forest is a continuous visual interpretation of the consciousness-led sentiments evoked by places, and therefore it is without regards for neither the quantity nor the end point.

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In the Forest 11

Sơn dầu trên vải

on canvas

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In the Forest 23

thay nhau làm việc trên những bề mặt màu sắc để thay nhau tường thuật về cảm xúc và nhận thức về Rừng, Trong Rừng, trong một mạch đối thoại và tự sự liên miên. Sự liên thông của cảm giác chuyển thành các thao tác vẽ, vẩy, vạch, miết, mài với những sắc độ dịch chuyển bề mặt tranh được diễn ra từ người này nối tiếp người kia, khi chia sẻ nhận thức và cảm xúc chung về tự nhiên. Các ”hội thoại” liên tục của họ trên bề mặt tranh hình thành những đường vạch màu chạy dọc

Started in 2021, In the Forest first materialized as a series of large oil-on-canvas paintings, which then turned into painted antique door and chest frames, which were treated like painting surfaces with their corresponding three-dimensional textures and heavy materials, following by moving-image videos filmed during their Forest Trips. The large-size horizontal oil paintings have no beginning nor ending. Their surfaces are composed of crisscrossing strips of colors of different shades, from warm and brilliant to cold and dark. The paintings were created in the signature creative style of Le Brothers: the duo took turn working on the expanses of colors to alternatively recited their emotions and awareness of the Forest, of being in the Forest. This recitation was presented in a continuous dialogue, a constant narration. In this sharing of the duo’s awareness and emotions about nature, the connectedness of the emotions was transformed into the motions of paintings, splashing, scratching, sanding, caressing, which created the various shifting of the paintings’ surfaces, shifting that were passed back and forth between the two artists. Their continuous ‘conversation’ on the paintings formed unending, layered, dense, everevolving strips of colors that run vertically - like a dense, multi-layered atmosphere of emotions that is both growing and rotting, brought to the artists by the Forest.

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In the Forest 17

Sơn dầu trên vải | Oil on canvas

160 x 200 cm | 2021 - 2023

11.900$

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In the Forest 19

Sơn dầu trên vải | Oil on canvas 160 x 200 cm | 2021 - 2023

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In the Forest 26

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Sơn

Trong

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Từ mặt vải vẽ, trạng thái màu sắc này này lan lên các khung cửa gỗ cổ, lên những phiến vật chất do bàn tay con người và dấu ấn của thời gian, như sự bao phủ và sinh sôi của rừng sẽ xâm

chiếm những gì còn lại. Dàn dựng dàn trải trong không gian một cách phi

tuyến, không nhằm hướng đến một lộ trình cụ thể cho người xem, những vật thể nghệ thuật do bàn tay con người kết hợp với vật thể tự nhiên của cây, nước, sinh vật, nhằm xây dựng và truyền đạt cảm giác về thiên nhiên, và tạo dựng sự đối thoại với thiên nhiên của mỗi người bước vào trong đó

From the canvas, this state of color spread to the antique wooden frames, to materials created by human hands and the indentations of time, like the forest growing and spreading to overtake what is left behind. Staged across space in a non-linear manner, without any specific orientation to guide the viewers, the art objects made by human hands in combination with the natural objects of trees, water, and animals aimed to construct and express the artists’ feelings about nature, while developing a dialogue between nature and anyone who would step into the space.

rừng 1 In the Forest 1

Sơn dầu trên cửa gỗ | Oil on wooden door 180 x 165 x 6 cm | 2021 - 2023

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Lắng nghe một phần tự sự của Lê Brothers từ khởi nguồn của dự án này:

“Cây ơi mày bao nhiêu tuổi?” - Câu hỏi bật ra từ cảm

xúc ngay lúc đó khi chúng tôi chạm tay vào một thân

cây cổ thụ trong rừng đại ngàn, và cả từ tâm khảm

của chúng tôi, vừa ẩn mật vừa vô thức như tiếng

vọng từ một cội nguồn xa xôi, một gắn kết nào đó

đã mất đi. Như mỗi người đều có bản thổ, gốc gác, nhân thân, có lịch sử và có nơi chốn mình đến và đi, vậy tự nhiên đến từ đâu và đi về đâu? Tự nhiên là gì là môi trường sống và dung dưỡng cho mọi sinh linh, hay chính nó là một thực thể sống khác mà các sinh linh trong đó là một phần cơ thể, là những tế bào của tự nhiên?

On how the project was conceived, Le Brothers said:

“How old are you, tree?” - This question materialized from the emotions we immediately felt when we touched the trunk of an ancient tree in an old-growth forest. And it also came from deep within us, from some secret corner of our subconsciousness, like an echo from a distant root, a link that has been lost to us. Everyone has a place of origin, a lineage, an identity, a history, a starting point and a destination. So where does nature come from and where does it go? What is nature? Is it the living environment that nourishes all beings? Or is it another living entity of which other beings are bodily parts - cells that constitute nature?

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In the Forest 6

Sơn dầu trên cửa gỗ | Oil on wooden door

195 x 190 x 6 cm | 2021 - 2023

9.900$

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In the Forest 3

Sơn dầu trên cửa gỗ | Oil on wooden door

180 x 127 x 6 cm | 2021 - 2023

11.900$

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Sơn dầu trên cửa gỗ | Oil on wooden door 145 x 110 x 6 cm | 2021 - 2023

9.900$

Như một lần triết gia Adorno từng đề cao về năng

lực của phản ánh lịch sử của nghệ thuật là chân thực

và ít hoài nghi hơn bất kì những tài liệu khách quan nào , Trong Rừng có thể coi là một nỗ lực đóng góp

vào lịch sử của chuỗi ý thức con người đối thoại

với tự nhiên. Và dẫn giả triển lãm này nỗ lực tạo ra

đường dẫn mơ hồ nào đó tới ý thức và lao động do hai nghệ sĩ tr nh bày với khán giả ở đây, với ý tứ từ lời nói của I. Kant: “Tự nhiên đẹp vì nó nhìn như Nghệ thuật, và Nghệ thuật chỉ có thể coi là đẹp khi nhận thức của chúng ta về vật phẩm Nghệ thuật đó

The philosopher Adorno once exalted art for having a more truthful and less dubious capability to reflect history than any objective documents. Following this line of thought, In the FOREST can be considered a contribution to the history of conversations between the stream of human consciousness and nature. And this curatorial note, which is an attempt at delineating a vague path to the ideas and labor presented by the artist duo to their audiences, would like to borrow the words of I. Kant, “Nature is beautiful because it looks like Art; and Art can only be called beautiful if we are conscious of it as Art while yet it looks like Nature”. I would like to invite you to perceive and experience Nature and search for your own dialogue through these new artistic reflections of Le Brothers.

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GIÁM TUYỂN / CURATOR

anh là Giám đốc Nghệ thuật của Heritage Space - không gian nghệ thuật độc lập tại Hà Nội từ năm 2016, và chịu trách nhiệm cho các chương trình văn hóa - nghệ thuật của trung tâm từ đó đến nay. Tuấn là giám tuyển và điều hành “Tháng thực hành Nghệ thuật - MAP” - dự án trao đổi và thực hành nghệ thuật đương đại quốc tế các năm 2016 – nay, và là giám đốc của Kho Dữ liệu Nghệ thuật Đương đại Việt Nam (VCAD). Nguyễn Anh Tuấn là thành viên dự án Không gian văn hóa sáng tạo Hội Đồng Anh (Vietnam Creative Hubs 2018 - 2021), thành viên của Mekong Cultural Hub (MCH) - Mạng lưới liên kết văn hóa các nước tiểu vùng sông Mekong từ 2018. Cùng với Heritage Space, anh nhận được các hỗ trợ từ nhiều tổ chức uy tín trong và ngoài nước như viện Goethe, Hội đồng Anh, Trung tâm Văn hóa Nhật Bản, Quỹ Hàn Quốc, Hội đồng Nghệ thuật Thụy Sỹ Pro Helvetia và nhiều nơi khác.

Nguyen Anh-Tuan graduated from the Hanoi Fine Arts University with a major in Theory & History of Arts. Tuan has worked as art researcher at the Hanoi Institute of Art from 2002 - 2015, and as manager of Muong AIR, the artist-in-residency program of Muong Studio from 2012 - 2016. Since 2016, Tuan has been working as artistic director of Heritage Space, an independent art space in Hanoi, Vietnam. His works includes curating and organizing “Month of Arts Practice - MAP” – the annual project focus on international art exchange (2016 - now) and cofounder, director of Vietnam Contemporary Art

Database (VCAD), the public archive of contemporary arts in Vietnam (2020 – now).

Tuan is also a member of Mekong Cultural Hubs - the network of cultural sectors in Mekong Delta countries since 2018, and member of the Cultural Creative Hubs project (2018 - 2021) implemented by British Council Vietnam and VICAS, co-sponsored by British Council and European Union. Along with Heritage Space, he has been supported by the Goethe-Institut, British Council, Korea Foundation, Pro Helvetia, ifa, Japan Foundation among others.

In the forest

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In t he f orest

LÊ BROTHERS

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