MADS Magazine d'Art De Saigon - Volume #2

Magazine d'Art De Saigon

#SKATESURF&RIDE #EXTREME MUSIC #CINEMA Magazine d'Art #POPULAR CULTURE De Saigon #SCIENCE-FICTION #PHOTOGRAPHY #SPACE #SEA #VIETNAM #BLUES #CONTEMPORARYART #CERAMICS #INSTALLATIONART #BIOMORPHIC #SAIGON #LIFEISABEACH #GONESOUTH #NOTONASSIGNMENT #DANSMARUE #ITSBLURRY

Magazine d'A De Saigon

#2

#SILVERPRINT #SAITOWN #AFTERDARK #URBAN #BLADERUNNERREALITY #CITYLIFE #GLITCHPHOTOGRAPHY #TRANSMISSIONERRORS #GHOST #THEELECTROCUTIONROOM #HORRORSTRUCKPHARAOH #VISUALSTORETELLING #ARTDOCUMENTARY #PHOTOGRAPHER #CONCEPTUALPHOTOGRAPHY #ARCHILOVER #TRAVEL #PICS #ADVENTURE #CREATIVITY #VIETNAM

Magazine d'Ar De Saigon

Magazine d'Art De Saigon

Issue #2 www.issuu.com/madsmagazine | www.mads.asia welove@mads.asia Š Copyright 2018 | All Rights Reserved

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Thierry Bernard-Gotteland Installation art to you means: The process of gathering mixed-media techniques in the production of an alien creature.

When I frame the image of an installation work I only limit the full experience of a three dimensional work into a muted 2D space.

An installation work as a presence, as a ghost. This form of art only has a temporary life pre-defined through the exhibition duration and the same work reborn each time within different formal variation dealing with new architectural constraints but keeps is content, consistent. This is Re-Animator Time. #SKATESURF&RIDE #EXTREME MUSIC #CINEMA #POPULAR CULTURE #SCIENCE-FICTION

What’s the moment that you like during creating?

All phases of creations are important, I like when I start a new creation, but I also like it when it is finished. That means I can start anew.

Do you have sometimes doubts?

Yes sometimes, it is everyday that I build myself, that I look for and advance.

What is your most beautiful artistic moment?

When I see a rising smile, sparkling eyes in every person who looks at my art. #CONTEMPORARYART #CERAMICS #INSTALLATIONART #BIOMORPHIC #SAIGON

Tom Hricko

Morgan Ommer

Photography to you means: A process which allows one to extract elements from consensus reality and transform those elements in a variety of ways.

Photography to you means: A way of life.

When I frame the image: When I frame an image I concentrate on what to remove from the frame and then how to arrange what remains.

A camera is: The missing link between my right eye and my thumb or forefinger (right hand).

A camera is: An image extracting device. #PHOTOGRAPHY #SPACE #SEA #VIETNAM #BLUES

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Karine Guillermin

When I frame the image: I hold my breath.

#LIFEISABEACH #GONESOUTH #NOTONASSIGNMENT #DANSMARUE #ITSBLURRY

Francis

Darren Tynan

Photography to you means: A tool like other art tools to help capture and express the stories as well as the human conditions.

Photography to you means: A reflective process of observing, documenting, and creating the world around you.

When I frame the image: I think first of what story I want to tell.

What is the message here?

When I frame the image: I position visual artefacts and anomalies crawling across TV screens in a rectangular box.

A camera is: Just a box that records images, nothing more than an expensive tool. #SAITOWN #AFTERDARK #URBAN #BLADERUNNERREALITY #CITYLIFE

P hoto by : N guyễn L ê M inh

A camera is: A sometimes unnecessarily complicated device for drawing with light. #GLITCHPHOTOGRAPHY #TRANSMISSIONERRORS #GHOST #THEELECTROCUTIONROOM #HORRORSTRUCKPHARAOH

Nana Chen

Thiery Beyne

When I create: I feel calm.

Photography to you means: Creativity!

When I frame the image: I only display paintings at home or friends’ photographs, not my own.

When I frame the image: I sometimes frame my photos, but very rarely, I always try to frame the image in my lens.

A camera is: A tool. #VISUALSTORETELLING #ARTDOCUMENTARY #PHOTOGRAPHER #CONCEPTUALPHOTOGRAPHY #ARCHILOVER

A camera is: A Nikon D300 17/55 mm lens, and a Nikon D610, lens: 50 mm, and 14/24 mm #TRAVEL #PICS #ADVENTURE #CREATIVITY #VIETNAM

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INSTALLATION ARTIST

Thierry BernardGotteland #SKATESURF&RIDE | #EXTREME MUSIC | #CINEMA | #POPULAR CULTURE | #SCIENCE-FICTION

Website | Facebook | Gallery

delimiting the flower shop to the bakery. The following day after this incident happened, the baker dropped by my mom’s cafe to get a drink, located a few meters away from the incident. He starts to tell about the fire story ’ve been working in a variety of media and said: “ I was watching a TV series CSI-like from traditional art mediums to new media technology under the label of installa- and within a scene, there was a fire. I suddenly told myself, … ‘Wahoo! Great use of Technology tion art and sound/music performance since these days; --- we’ve got the image, the sound I entered the Fine Art School of Grenoble, and now the smell”.

France in 1997.

I like the ambiguous aspect of understandBeing influenced by the context of our ing moments by producing events governed living experience and direct environment, my work is structured by the local and global by specific physical atmospheres. This offers a singular experience by questioning the facts. phenomenon. By applying a poetic and often The ‘switch’ or ‘twitch’ of ideas/objects/events, metaphorical language and violence, I try to taking place in an unexpected space or at an create works in which the actual event still unexpected moment of time. has to take place or just has ended: moments After a presentation of my work at Ayala evocative of atmosphere and suspense that are Museum in Makati, Manila, The Philippines not part of a narrative thread. in 2013 where I was talking about the The drama unfolds elsewhere while the Vietnamese Heavy Metal Underground Scene in build-up of tension is frozen to become the comparison with the 90’s European Metal scene, memory of an event that will never or that will take place. Frozen moments, in-betweens, someone told me while facing the museum’s buffet: “I am very surprised and I would have frames of discontinuity collide with the past never thought that Heavy Metal would be and the present time while hinting at prosentering an Art Museums”. pects of all tomorrows.

The works are characterized by the use of These first reflective few lines displayed everyday objects in an atmosphere of middle above, borrowed from my artist statement class and popular culture in which recogniintroduction could resonate with an experience that happened to me decades ago when I tion plays an important role. By contesting the division between the realm of memory and was a child, after having accidentally setting the realm of experience, I try to make work up in fire the wooden porch gathering all that generates diverse meanings. Associations the garbage of the nearby commercial stores, “I am very surprised and I would never have thought that Heavy Metal would enter in Art Museums ”

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“ I was watching a TV series CSI-like and within a scene, there was a fire. I suddenly told myself, …

‘Wahoo! Great use of Technology these days; --- we’ve got the image, the sound and now the smell”.

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and meanings collide. Space becomes time and language becomes image as well as the sound becomes visuals.

My work demonstrates how life extends beyond its own subjective limits and often tells a story about the effects of global cultural interaction. It challenges the binaries we continually reconstruct between Self and Other, between our own ‘cannibal’ and ‘civilized’ selves. Ruins and Waste of our current living societies and realities could be then re-injected in the art production by means of “Zombies & Re-Animators artefacts”.

By parodying and deconstructing mass media, culture, history and society, by exaggerating certain formal aspects inherent to our contemporary society, this often creates work using creative social tactics, but these are never permissive.

By applying abstraction to a very figurative process of aligning references and influences altogether, I do create a work through intensive thinking processes that can be seen explicitly as a personal-universal-conceptual exorcism ritual.

My work focuses on the in/ability of communication, which is used to visualize reality, the attempt of dialogue, the dissonance between form and content and the dysfunctions of the poetic language. In short, the massive usage of references is the key element in the work.

Because of the references overlapping references, a lack of clear recognition occurs, becoming a blurry understanding as a whole, providing new meanings and interpretations.

With a conceptual approach, I try to increase

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the dynamic between audience and author by objectifying emotions and investigating the duality that develops through different interpretations.

My works are given improper functions: significations are inverted and form and content merge. Shapes are dissociated from their original meaning, by which the system in which they normally function is exposed.

Initially unambiguous meanings are shattered and disseminate endlessly.

By studying sign processes, semiotics, signification and communication, I do touch various overlapping themes and strategies for the providence of meanings. Several recurring subject matter can be recognized, such as the relation with popular culture and media, working with repetition, provocation and the investigation of the process of interpretations within the scope of Art, Culture and History.

The work questions the condition of the appearance of an image in the context of a contemporary visual culture in which images, representations and ideas normally function by placing the viewer on an unstable track.

The work radiates a cold and latent violence by means of sound usage or visual constructions. Indeed, at times, disconcerting beauty emerges. The inherent visual seductiveness along with the conciseness of the exhibitions further complicates the reception of their manifold layers of meaning and their done/ undone making process.

I currently work with RMIT University (School of Communication and Design) as a lecturer and live in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam since 2006.

INSTALLATION ARTIST

Karine Guillermin #CONTEMPORARYART | #CERAMICS | #INSTALLATIONART | #BIOMORPHIC | #SAIGON

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Over time I have created my own goals, my own rules that help erase boredom. When working I respect a code, a sense of colour, use of closed lines, a direction, keeping to multiples of three. This way my mind is always awake attentive, and at one with my creation.

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was born in France in 1975 and grew up in an artistic environment. My father was very creative and at the time was an advertising photographer. He helped me to discover photography and also painting. I created my first painting when I was a teenager. It was an oil painting. While my creative spirit was born during this period, I initially ended up taking a more conventional career path in Marketing.

For years, I focused on my job. One day, however, a chance meeting helped me return to the canvas and brush. I was 35 years old at the time.

Returning to art was a bit chaotic at the beginning, dramatic even, I hesitated a lot.

There was a raw mixture of anger and joy when moving back to what had made me happy when I was younger. It took perseverance and patience to finally discover the pleasure that comes in accomplishing work, and to feel satisfaction in completion. It took a long time to finally decide to listen to myself and believe in this beautiful artistic adventure and to also travel.

I lived for a few years between France and Japan where little by little my inspiration grew and evolved. I had to learn and tame a different culture, which allowed me to open my mind and my heart. It was during these travels that my artistic vision started to take shape. I discovered that one must learn to continually examine one’s motivations and inspiration in order to grow.

Even to this day, I continue to build my

practice through research, asking questions, reading, exploring artistic desires, crying and working through frustrations.

For me, to create has become a need, necessary for expression. I need it to feel free and not locked up in this or that box, which society sometimes imposes upon us. It helps to direct my mind, to explore my inner and outer self and to try to understand what our human diversity is. I see it as a reconnection to our essence.

My work comes from my imaginary world, my energy and my personality. Kandinsky wrote that “the form is the outer expression of the inner content”. I take this to heart – looking at my creativity is a spiritual journey, a meditation, a break to the point where dreams and reality merge.

I see it as a journey where the eyes are a door to the mind, an energy symbolizing our strength and our differences. We must know how to listen to our inner world, to know how to listen to our thoughts.

My own universe is a large space where different environments mix, huge petals of flowers, aquatic molluscs strolling in the air, rainbow fireworks, tree roots. A carefully thought-out strange, dreamy, fresh and colourful world where shapes and harmony delight in the tiny details of the “microcosmic” repetition that is sometimes complex.

Over time I have created my own goals, my own rules that help erase boredom. When working I respect a code, a sense of colour, use

of closed lines, a direction, keeping to multiples of three. This way my mind is always awake attentive, and at one with my creation.

Today I live and work in Ho Chi Minh City – a new place, a new culture, with new inspirations, new challenges and new encounters, which has born new creations. A new me too. And from these experiences emerged Upopo O Hana Spirit, which means “The spirit of the sound of the flowers”.

It is based on a floral composition that is very colourful, enchanting and appealing to the senses. This is paired with an interior garden represented by thirty-one paintings and just over 6,000 pieces of ceramics. I’ve embraced a fresh use of colour as a sort of return to nature in my work. Upopo O Hana Spirit came about quite naturally. It is a continuation of my previous work, my travels, influences, experiences and my roots.

The title came to me first, a blend of the Ainou (Indigenous peoples from Northern Japan) word “UPOPO” and the Japanese word for flower, “O HANA”. Together they make a sweet singing blend of concept and sound.

My artistic approach and my contact with the canvas is simply the continuation of my work. However, incorporating ceramic installation into my work is new with this project.

I had to think about making an installation, I wanted to create a garden, but how?

After much research and testing, I found ceramic the best output. I try to work as naturally as possible, by keeping the colours natural and unfired for the most part, each of the 6000 pieces unique.

My work is informed by my research and explorations but also is also intuitive. My poem Upopo O Hana Spirit is very much a journey into this intuitive process of creation.

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UPOPO O HANA SPIRIT The spirit of the sound of flowers Is it resonant like the wind blowing a light sound as we walk through our body?

Is it a statement of the moment?

Is there the balance between two forces?

Internal-external?

Duality?

Where is the beginning?

Where is the end?

What does the flower represent?

Would she be, A symbol of the ephemeral, a transient aspect Symbol of fulfilment, renewal Symbol of our inner world Is there a relationship between body and mind?

Does it resound like silence venturing into our minds?

The sound would not it be silence?

Is silence not our thoughts?

Vacuity?

Do we lose control?

Suffering - Happiness?

What is suffering?

It’s becoming another person It’s opening a new door to his personality It’s getting lost on a path not chosen Where everything is without light, without colour It’s a hope that does not come It’s crying And then silence Watch Listen Appreciate Understand Breaking the darkness To become happiness Travel with us Where the eyes are the door of the spirit And where to look with the mind An energy symbolizing our strength, our differences Silence Listen The sound of silence becomes our thoughts so I listen to my thoughts Duality or No Duality?

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PHOTOGRAPHER

francis #SAITOWN | #AFTERDARK | #URBAN | #BLADERUNNERREALITY | #CITYLIFE

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I seldom experience that simple, laid back life that most people see when they travel to Vietnam.

It’s all portrayed in my work — high contrast lighting, hectic, imperfect, but full of stories.

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’m Francis, but my real Vietnamese name is Van Anh; Francis is a name I gave to myself as a persona to try to be an artist.

Although my work is in photography, I try to include art influences into it. I don’t make snapshot images, but images made with stories and ideas behind them. Many of my images don’t look realistic, some, more like paintings.

That’s the world I want to create, more colourful, more exciting, somewhat like an escape from reality.

I was born and raised in Saigon, even my parents were, so I’m very much a city person.

I seldom experience that simple, laid back life that most people see when they travel to Vietnam. It’s all portrayed in my work — high contrast lighting, hectic, imperfect, but full of stories.

I love taking portraits and editorial fashion photos, there’s so much freedom in it to explore. I translate how you see the world in pictures. I also get to meet and work with a lot of people, get to know their lives.

With portraits, few people have ever had their portraits taken. Their reaction, when I show them how I perceive them, is always interesting. It’s not a walk in the park, but

giving people the experience of their portraits taken is always a thing I’d want to do.

My first camera was a Canon 500D with a kit lens. I saved up a few months to get it, and it was also my first big investment. Then, I started taking photos of my friends. Most of them happened to be musicians, then it kind of clicked and I moved forward from there.

How I view people and things have always been much different from others. I’ve always wanted to experiment with ideas, meet interesting people. But, I can’t draw. I don’t know how to paint and didn’t go to a proper art school like the rich kids. Photography was the fastest and most accessible way I could use to translate my ideas into art. This happens to be the medium that I got involved with in my life, and it’s been a hell of a journey.

Most of all I love the process of a photo shoot. The people I meet, the things everyone comes up with by working together. I used to tell people “I feel most alive when I’m on set, the rest of the time I’m just inside my head”. Because photoshoots are where my ideas get the main playground. Where my ideas get to go out there to see the world, and that’s what I’m living for.

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abes of Saigon (I’m still not very sure about the name), it’s still an ongoing project I’m trying to push.

I’ve always wanted to document this “phenomenon”, a theme I want to explore further and keep taking pictures of. So, in my mind, it’s still an ongoing project and I want to share the process with others.

In Vietnamese culture, women don’t have to cover their faces or hair. Yet, they are always so concerned with how they look to a culture standard. Many of them would go to ridiculous lengths, no matter how silly they look, to keep their beauty ideas. For instance, cover all their skin from the sun to keep the porcelain white skin.

You look at someone covered from head to toe with 10 different types of floral fabric, plus giant sunglasses. It is hard to even tell if it was a person underneath all that or not.

But once they stop the bike, and they take all that hideous “aprons” out, there’s a beautiful girl underneath! It’s kind of like magic—the Vietnamese magic. Haha.

I am inspired by pretty much anything that’s different from the norm. Nonconforming while telling a story at the same time. By things that are provocative, surrealistic, but not superficial and empty.

I love how you can distort and transform reality only with a little black box and some glasses. That’s what I love about photography.

Most of the time I’m inspired by movies and music, painterly photographs. I watch a lot of movies and always listening to music.

My ultimate inspiration is the classic Blade Runner (1986).

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I also get inspired by David Lynch, Paolo Roversi, David Sims, Annie Leibovitz, Harley Weir, Julia Hetta and Nicolas Jaar.

Female beauty especially draws a lot of my attention. There are so many different standards and stigma attached to it. That makes it an inexhaustible source for a lot of artists.

My current favourite photographer to draw inspiration from is Harley Weir.

I’m fascinated by city lights at night, like around 1am to 4am it is a magical time.

Everything seems so still, so dead—yet so vibrant and so alive.

My main obstacle would be financing and finding a stable team to work within photoshoots. Because the like-minded people I work with come and go out of Vietnam all the time. If you want the best team you gotta have the budget, but that’s not the case for personal projects like mine.

I’m looking forward to collaborating with other photographers/artists alike. I want to do projects together, to develop Saigon’s art scene more and more.

My advice: focus on your work and what you want to do most. Don’t waste time comparing yourself with others in the same field.

These images were shot for Word Vietnam magazine, the Fashion issue. We shot these right in front of the Word office, utilizing the classic Vietnamese alley. #SAIGON #SAITOWN #BIKELIFE #HUSTLE #BABE

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FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHER

darren tynan #GLITCHPHOTOGRAPHY | #TRANSMISSIONERRORS | #GHOST | #THEELECTROCUTIONROOM | #HORRORSTRUCKPHARAOH

Website

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I took a picture of a distorted face on the screen just before I was shocked, an image my friend later described as a ‘horror-struck female pharaoh atomised in a digital matrix’.

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watched the ghostly faces morph on the TV screen as I got electrocuted through the rabbit ears in my hand. The faces trespassed through me in one jolt. I had been moving the antenna back and forth and side to side like a kind of superstitious ritual. I took a picture of a distorted face on the screen just before I was shocked, an image my friend later described as a ‘horror-struck female pharaoh atomised in a digital matrix’. That was the last photo I took in the electrocution room.

I was dazed for a while, counting my luck and pacing back and forth in a small Airbnb on Nguyễn Cư Trinh Street in Saigon.

I moved here in January from Perth, Western Australia. When I arrived I couldn’t help but gawk at the way that the streets’ electrical cables were wrapped around utility poles like seething masses of venomous vines.

At night, a flickering red glow from a sea of motorbikes complimented the vines’ danger and allure. There was a similarly messy jumble of cords growing around the analogue TV where I was working. I thought maybe I’d created a bad omen. My girlfriend had warned me about it; the electricity in our room wasn’t grounded properly and we’d both been zapped a few times through our laptops. I only got electrocuted once before I moved out of the Airbnb. I took about 50 pictures before it happened and then I narrowed them down to a smaller series named Ghost.

As a photographer, I explore serendipity as a generative device and embrace the technical instability of broadcast technologies. I use TVs from various eras, different antennas, a digital

camera, and a good dose of superstition and a chance to make my pictures. I see this process as a kind of ‘photographic archaeology’ whereby I’m trying to unearth something psychological within a fractured and distorted video landscape. I don’t always know what I’m trying to achieve, so for me, the process informs the result and it comes down to experimentation and inquiry.

To create Ghost, I transformed video footage from free-to-air Vietnamese television channels into a photographic sequence. I tuned into public TV stations and manipulated and distorted the video broadcast by moving around an antenna in one hand as I took pictures with the other. I deliberately introduced a lot of video transmission errors and took pictures up close to different parts of the footage as it was morphing and undergoing a process of disintegration in real time. In a way, I am ‘scrambling’ video and then working from that to create new pictures.

When I’m up close to the screen, faces will appear ghostly and distorted through the camera and are completely unrecognisable from the originally intended broadcast. Each TV has its own idiosyncrasies: modern, high-definition technology combined with digital stations will produce a strong ‘macroblocking’ effect, which is a kind of transmission error where there’s a discontinuity between the blocks of pixels in decoded video frames. The video breaks apart into bars and squares and everything becomes rearranged and distorted. Severe broadcast transmission errors on modern TVs will also feature strong

pixilation, and the transitions between each error will be very unpredictable and sudden.

When a video signal is interfered with or interrupted on older analogue TVs, the visual anomalies will be different, more soft and ghostly. The video breaks up and disintegrates in a different way as well.

For example, everything appears ‘grainy’ or film-like due to the inherent lack of definition.

When I shot Ghost, etched lines and scratches would appear in the photographs and comet-like artefacts trailed across the footage, unlike experiments I did with newer TVs. For a while now I’ve found video codec errors visually interesting. So with Ghost, there are a lot of signal interference anomalies, aliasing and tracking errors, and other visual artefacts that manifest unpredictably during my creative process.

There’s a lot of randomness, disintegration, and transmutation in these works. I can never go back and take the picture again as it’s an organic process where I’m actually photographing the video footage on the TV as it’s mutating.

I see value in running scripts and altering the code in post-production to create glitch art but I prefer this organic approach because of how physical, ephemeral and unrepeatable it is. Quite often technical errors in video and photography are dismissed as undesirable, whereas I try to embrace technical errors and visual anomalies as a way to create new things.

I can’t say I ‘ fell in love’ with photography, I just fell into it. Growing up in rural Western Australia, my mum had an interest in photography and there were always cameras lying around the house. This was a time before everyone had a camera in their pocket, so to me it seemed cool and interesting.

It’s a common situation I think – a lot of the time you become interested in what your parents are into and you make use of what you have access to. Photography was a way for my mum to document our family holidays along the southern coast of WA, and to take pictures of my sisters and me as we were growing up.

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Cool bikes, toothy toddler grins, and beloved pet cats frozen in time on tacky checkered lino floors.

As a young boy, my first camera was probably one of those Kodak single-use film cameras that you could buy from supermarkets. Those cameras had charm in that they were an irresistibly bright yellow colour and they came in a similarly garish box; they almost leapt off the shelf and were strategically placed near checkouts to encourage impulse buying.

They were kind of like the camera equivalent of a Kinder Surprise or a Chomp bar. I liked how faux-mechanical they were, with their shitty plastic cogs and whirring sounds.

Once I got hooked I started to care more about my pictures and considered saving my pocket money for a more reliable camera. I knew my pictures weren’t that great even though no one told me outright. But I kept taking them. More often than not, the pictures went to the ‘could be better’ shame pile. I still feel the same way now. I’m never really happy with my photos.

In high school, my English teacher gave me a book of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs, and I remember thinking it was an astonishing cross-section of everything incredible and awful about humanity.

These images left a deep impression on me so my interest in photography developed further. There is mystery, humour, triumph, love, suffering, irony, beauty, terror, chance, error, and banality in pictures. A picture can make you cry or laugh or groan or sigh or gasp or say nothing. Or it can make you reflect upon your life or scare you or annoy you or confuse you or bore the shit out of you or make you wish you were exempt from humanity.

You can take a picture of something from countless angles and dance around a street scene like a crazed firewalker or stroll down a train carriage with a selfie stick as you crane your neck out like a flamingo.

Or you can take a picture of your feet at the end of your bed and hashtag the shit out of it before you eat breakfast. Photography can be anything you want it to be.

I find it interesting to try to make sense of the world through a viewfinder, deciding what’s important to show and what isn’t. And how that changes over time. And how you view the world differently as you get older and presumably wiser.

I’ve had an on and off relationship with photography for the last five years. I went through clichéd bouts of frustration and inspiration, and put my camera down for a short while.

A photographer once told me that photography is supposed to be a miserable lonely endeavour, and will eventually kill you. In 2016, I studied photography at university and went on what I can only describe as a photojournalism ‘boot camp’ in China, which was really challenging and inspiring and gave me some new insights as well as some amazing stories and memories. I can’t say it killed me but there were some hairy moments walking around late in Shanghai, such as getting chased by an angry and unwilling photographic subject.

Lately, I’ve been enjoying the experimental and bizarre side of art photography. I’m inspired by the creativity of the Surrealists

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and Dadaists, and by contemporary photographers like Asger Carlsen and Roger Ballen, who are exploring the fringes of their psyches and pushing the medium to its limits by toying with photographic conventions, and by doing strange and wonderful things with photography, sculpture and drawing.

I enjoy the absurdity and transgression of their photographic worlds. It’s often tonguein-cheek, like you’re looking at a picture and thinking, ‘what the fuck is going on’ and you can’t help but laugh. But it’s never one-dimensional because you’re looking at all the layers in an image for a long time, and it bounces around in your mind for weeks.

While it’s a far stretch from the documentary photography that initially inspired me, experimental contemporary photography has encouraged me to explore my own ideas and creative processes and to value the medium more greatly as a way of expressing abstract and artistic ideas.

At the moment I’m working towards a solo exhibition and I have a few photography projects in the works. I’m also open to collaborations with other artists, so feel free to get in touch via my website.

FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHER

tom hricko #PHOTOGRAPHY | #SPACE | #SEA | #VIETNAM | #BLUES

Website | Website

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The title Echo Beach comes from the 1979 song of the same name by Martha and the Muffins with the chorus “far away in time” which seemed appropriate for this series.

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was studying painting when, in 1967, I was drafted into Uncle Sam’s army and sent to Vietnam. Cameras were cheap at the PX in Nha Trang so I picked up a 35mm Petri 7 rangefinder camera. It wasn’t long before I was taking it everywhere and pointing it at everything. When I returned to the US, I decided to switch my major from painting to photography.

Initially, I studied photojournalism influenced by the work of W. Eugene Smith but moved to medium and large format black and white landscape work influenced first by Edward Weston and later by Paul Caponigro.

Eventually I was exhibiting, had a dealer and was teaching advanced black and white printing and technical photography at the art school of the State University of New York, Purchase campus. In 1994 I decided to take a short sabbatical in Vietnam which turned out to be not so short as I am still here.

The 2017 Echo Beach series was created in

Vung Tau, Vietnam. It is the result of many experiments with the light, space, colors and object placement at Back Beach and how the photographic process could transform these picture elements. The prints are 70cmx46cm on bamboo fiber fine art paper, which works well to complete the watercolor feeling I wanted. (Many thanks to Danny Bach, master printer at VG labs in Saigon). The title Echo Beach comes from the 1979 song of the same name by Martha and the Muffins with the chorus “ far away in time” which seemed appropriate for this series.

This quote from Ralph Gibson nicely connects with my view of photography: “I believe photographs are better than the photographer and the art is better than the artist.

I’m not the music; I’m the radio through which the music plays. So I follow the work, I don’t lead the work. I go where the work sends me.”

My advice to artists is not to listen to any advice and just “ follow the work.”

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FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHER

morgan ommer #LIFEISABEACH | #GONESOUTH | #NOTONASSIGNMENT | #DANSMARUE | #ITSBLURRY

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If you are careful and

Please tell us about yourself. Where you are from and other tidbits.

My name is Morgan Ommer, I was named after a pirate, or … after an english luxury car, depending on whom and when you ask. I was born and brought up in Paris. I’ve since lived in different places, but I love Vietnam. Driving a moped here is fantastic.

compassionate, any camera will do to tell a story, including your phone.

Your first camera?

My father gave me a Minolta when I was 12.

When I was 16, I lost it on a train to Cologne.

Stolen... Later I inherited a little money and I bought a rangefinder from a German camera brand. I still use that camera today.

What made you choose this medium?

I cannot sing, or draw, I find writing painful, a friend of mine persuaded me to overcome my reticence to take pictures just because my father is a well known photographer.. I believed him, so here we are.

When and where did you capture these images?

Over the past 4 years, in the street of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Danang, I even shot an actual fashion series with models, lights, make up, dresses at a resort in Central Vietnam.

What made you fall in love with photography?

Counting, for me, is an issue, so is spelling.

Dancing or painting were definitely out, for I’m rhythmically challenged, have 2 left hands and no sense of perspective or direction.

I did however feel an urge to express myself, so photography seemed an accessible solution. It took a while, but eventually I taught myself how to click the button when I saw something. Now I love it.

What made you choose this project?

I often get asked “what is a good camera?”

Having never worked in a camera shop, I actually don’t know the answer to that question. My answer tends to be “what is happiness?” Then I decided to test what Eve Arnold said about camera’s “The instrument is not the camera but the photographer.”

Who inspires you?

Stanley Kubrik, Wong Kar Wai, Imura Ihei , Raghubir Singh, some of the Magnum boys and girls, Boris Vian, Rene Magritte, my uncle Bob and sometimes my mother.

What do you want to tell?

If you are careful and compassionate, any camera will do to tell a story, including your phone.

What was your hardest assignment and why?

Shooting in the Himalaya’s was hard. Not enough oxygen and I’m scared of heights.

What inspired you?

Street life mostly.

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What was the main obstacle you faced?

The phone camera I use, is not always a very good camera ;)

What is your advice to other artists?

Persevere, don’t stop.

#PHONEPHOTO #CLOSEENOUGH #CONTREJOUR #DECISIVEMOMENT #CLICKCLACK

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FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHER

nana chen #VISUALSTORETELLING | #ARTDOCUMENTARY | #PHOTOGRAPHER | #CONCEPTUALPHOTOGRAPHY | #ARCHILOVER

Website | Facebook | Instagram

I

In 2005 I moved to Copenhagen, where I met a group of very talented photographers, some worldrenowned, helping each other until the early morning hours, competing for the same award.

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was born in Taiwan but left when I was around six during the martial law period.

Leaving the country then was very difficult and we had to pretend we were going on summer holidays when in fact we were leaving everything and everyone.

The first stop was the Philippines, followed

by USA briefly before settling in Chile and Argentina, where I formed an identity.

However, we left after three years for Bolivia to obtain residency on the way back to the USA. In case my parents did not find a way to stay in America, we had the option of becoming Bolivians and find a way back to Argentina.

My parents were not in the military nor were they diplomats or corporate executives.

There was no plan. We simply moved where they knew someone. My brother and I went to all the local schools, about 15 of them in 12 years. Needless to say, the constant change was very difficult, particularly for a shy child, but I always found a way to cope.

I returned to Taiwan when I was 20 and didn’t want to move or travel for fourteen years. Then in 2005 I moved to Copenhagen, where I met a group of very talented photographers and photojournalists, some world-renowned, helping each other until the early morning hours, whist competing for the same award.

It was a true inspiration for not only photography but seeing how their helping each other made them all stronger. I was inspired by these passionate people with talent, generosity and kindness.

I started my journalistic career as an arts columnist for SCMP after years of writing English learning textbooks in Taipei. My

first camera was the Keystone spy camera bought at a garage sale at 14 in the suburbs of Atlanta. There were one button and one dial. All pictures came out grainy and soft. I loved it. I’ve been a visual person ever since an early age, either drawing, painting, or making things with my hands. It’s just something I’ve always liked doing.

Photography was not my first choice of medium. I started out painting and enjoyed that very much. But with photography, I liked the idea of freezing real life and people to study later. It’s a preservation of sorts, and that’s important for someone who’s moved as many times as I have.

Before I’d stumbled upon the site where I made the pictures for Discarded, I had never seen such a large area of destruction and wondered what was left in the rubble, what sort of things people left behind. Curiosity made me explore. The photographs are simply a way to weave a story based on the evidence of daily life. I didn’t face any obstacles while working on this project. The area was open when I started the project in 2010 in Ho Chi Minh City, District 2.

I am currently working on several personal projects and plan to continue doing more, plus exhibitions and meeting new friends along the way. My book on the Chungking Mansions—The Last Ghetto of Hong Kong will be launched this October in Hong Kong, then the UK in November and the USA and Canada in March 2019. I will be doing a book tour and giving talks about my work along the way.

My advice to aspiring photographers is to keep working if it feels right, despite what others say. Sometimes, a project takes a long time before you’re clear about its message. It is

a visual thinking process. The key is to keep going and look after your health.

The hardest assignment was covering a student political protest for The Observer Magazine. It was hard to watch young, passionate protesters being taken away by police.

#DISCARDED #URBANCHANGE #DEMOLITION #URBANISATION #GLOBALISATION

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FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHER

thiery beyne #TRAVEL | #PICS | #ADVENTURE | #CREATIVITY | #VIETNAM

Website | Facebook | Instagram

P The essential part for me was being at the heart of the Vietnamese population.

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assionate about graphics, I went to Corvisart, an art college in Paris.

After 4 years of art studies, I worked for several advertising agencies. There I met many advertising photographers who no doubt gave me a taste of photography.

Whilst doing my job as an Artistic Director, I practised photography more and more with my first Canon. At that time it was a film camera with Ilford film.

Then, in the 1980s, I went to Asia, where my passion for travelling and photography developed. I travelled from India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore and of course Vietnam, my favourite.

It’s almost 20 years now that I have travelled through Vietnam and photographed it from north to south, in it’s most remote corners.

I am married to a Vietnamese woman from Hue. My wife and I worked for FrancoVietnamese NGOs. That allowed us to be in direct contact with daily life and the authenticity of the country.

The essential part for me was being at the heart of the Vietnamese population. Living in the Khanh Hoa area, which I know very well, I decided to become a photography guide for major hotels in Nha Trang. 5 years of happiness where I guided many amateur photographers as well as professionals, of all nationalities.

From 1995 to 2018, I participated in many photo exhibitions in Paris and Vietnam.

In 1997, one of my photos titled “In Bombay Station” was awarded at the “International Nikon Photo Contest” and exhibited at The European House of Photography in Paris.

I now share my time between France and Vietnam.

My first “real” camera was a Canon FTB QL silver with Ilford 400 films, black and white.

At the time the Canon brand was very popular in France. I followed the advice of my photographer friends who all worked with a Canon.

But I must admit that one day I tried a Nikon. Ever since, for the last 30 years, I only work with Nikon, and of course for 10 years now, in digital.

Since returning to Paris, I have been working for a year on my new photographic concept called “Mes garçons de café parisiens” (My Parisian Coffee Boys) For 1 year I went through Parisian cafes in search of our “authentic coffee boys”. Still dressed in their traditional aprons, white shirts and bottle openers, proudly carried in the pocket of their black vests. Staying discrete is the concept and the main idea of ​​ my photographic work. Taking the snapshot, capturing the gestures, the dexterity, the skill with which they work, always in a dizziness of speed, whereas the customers, sitting quietly sip their black coffee.

Putting aside the misconception of “unpleasant boys”, these men and women are for the most part the affable ambassadors of their cafés, caring about the hospitality

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of the establishment, playing with verbal expressions that belong only to them and tirelessly repeated, Parisian humour and even sometimes translated into bad English for our tourists who remain questionable or even doubtful. Without them, Paris would not be Paris.

The coffee boys of Paris (Mes garçons de café) have often been photographed, my concept is to photograph them, while staying very discrete, surprising them in their natural gestures, “not posed”, the difficulty is also to not show their faces, France has very strict image rights, unlike Vietnam. Once my work is done, I will look for a publisher and publish a book on “Mes garçons de café” series and of course, organize photo exhibitions in Paris on this subject, in Asia too, because I know that the images of “Paris” and its Parisian cafes are very popular in Asian countries.

The great photographers inspire me, SALGADO, MC CURRY, MAPLETHORPE, WILLY RONIS, ROBERT DOISNEAU. To look at their photos, to try to understand how their “photographic eye” works, that is my inspiration, they are my masters.

The biggest obstacle for a photographer is probably when a photographer must meet the commercial constraints of a customer.

The work corresponding to one’s “eye” is not always that of the client. I have sometimes faced inconvenience, even a customer’s refusal of my photos that I found very good. It is for this reason that I prefer to work on personal

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projects that will only have my personal censorship.

All my photos are done in Paris when it comes to “Mes garçons de café”, as for my “BACK PHOTOGRAPHY” series, in Vietnam and Paris.

To be in love with photography is to be in love with the image.

Even without my camera in hand, my eye can not help framing the images. I am looking for the unusual image, photography is an obsession for me.

As I said above, great, real photographers, those who do not cheat with effects like photoshop and other software. The great masters of photography do not cheat.

My wish is to continue to photograph Vietnam, France and why not other Asian countries. I also want to take part in many more photographic exhibitions with my work.

It’s difficult to give advice. I would just tell young photographers, to “look” at the life around you, that’s how you will forge your photographic eye.

The most difficult part for a photographer is patience. It takes years to understand and master “the” photographic eye. I think one cannot be a photographer without having taken thousands of photos. #PARIS #GARÇON DE CAFÉ #INSTANT #CAFÉ #FRANCE

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NEW ADDRESS: 199 BIS NGUYEN VAN HUONG, THAO DIEN, Q2

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Saigon Tales of the City

by Old Compass Travel

A walk covering the city’s captivating past and frenetic present For more : Check out www.oldcompasstravel.com or visit us at The Old Compass Cafe 3rd Floor, 63/11 Pasteur St, D1, HCMC

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Classified Directory Apricot Gallery

Atiq Sai Gon

Vin Gallery

Spring Gallery

50–52 Mac Thi Buoi, Ben Nghe,

38 Le Cong Kieu, District 1,

6 Le Van Mien, Thao Đien,

1A Le Thi Hong Gam, District 1,

District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City

District 2, Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City

http://www.apricotgallery.com.vn/

https://www.facebook.com/

http://www.vingallery.com/showing

http://springgalleries.com/

Vietnam ART Gallery

Studio & Gallery

27i Tran Nhat Duat, Tan Đinh,

* * * Lotus Gallery

80 Nguyen Hue,

Long Thanh Art

District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

100 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia,

Ben Nghe Ward, District 1,

126 Hoang Van Thu,

http://cthomasgallery.com/

District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City

Nha Trang City

http://www.lotusgallery.vn

http://www.vietnampainting.vn/

http://www.longthanhart.com/

private museum

Salon Saigon

Ben Thanh Art & Frame

Art of Hanoi Vetnam

31C Le Quy Don, Ward 7,

6D Ngo Thoi Nhiem, Ward 7,

7 Nguyen Thiep,

1703B AZ Sky

District 3, Ho Chi Minh City

District 3, Ho Chi Minh City

Ben Nghe Ward, District 1,

Building Dinhcong,

http://www.salonsaigon.com

Ho Chi Minh City

Hoangmai, Hanoi

* * *

Craig Thomas Gallery

* * *

Duc Minh art gallery –

* * * Eight gallery

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

http://benthanhart.com/

Art Gallery Triệu Đóa

8 Phung Khac Khoan

Hồng - Saigon Clay Art

* * *

http://artofhanoi.com/

Lafayette Building

Dia Projects

Eye Art Gallery

Ward Da Kao, District 1,

440/7 Nguyen Kiem, Ward 3,

Dia Studio, Street No 3,

No.45, No.1 Street – 26B,

Ho Chi Minh City

District Phu Nhuan,

Binh Hung, Ho Chi Minh City

Ward 7, Go Vap District,

http://eightgallery.com.vn/

Ho Chi Minh City

http://www.diaprojects.org/

Ho Chi Minh City

* * *

https://saigonclayart.com/

* * *

* * *

http://www.eyegalleryvn.com/

Arts Centre

*San*Art*

3rd Floor, 104A Xuan Thuy,

Nguyen Art Gallery

15 Nguyen U Di, Thao Đien,

3F, Cà Phê Thứ Bảy Trẻ,

Thao Dien, District 2,

No 31A, Van Mieu, Hanoi http://www.nguyenartgallery.com/

The Factory Contemporary

Art Space

District 2, Ho Chi Minh City

264B Nam Ky Khoi Nghia,

Ho Chi Minh City

http://factoryartscentre.com/

District 3, Ho Chi Minh City

https://www.facebook.com/

http://san-art.org/

artspace104/

* * *

of Fine Arts

* * * Couleurs d’Asie by Rehahn

97A Pho Đuc Chinh,

151/7 Dong Khoi, Floor 1,

53 Ho Tung Mau,

Ward Nguyen Thai Bin,

District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

https://www.facebook.com/

http://www.tudoart.com/

Ho Chi Minh City Museum

* * *

Couleurs.dAsie.Saigon

* * *

* * *

Art Vietnam Gallery/

* * * Tudo Art

No. 2, Alley 66, Yen Lac, Hanoi http://www.artvietnamgallery.com/

* * *

Mekong Gallery Ltd

* * *

ArtArt Supplies 18/6C Nguyen Cuu Van, Ward 17,

97A Pho Đuc Chinh,

* * * Tara & Kys Art Gallery

Ho Chi Minh City & Hanoi

Ho Chi Minh City

Ward Nguyen Thai Bin,

101 Dong Khoi, Ben Nghe Ward,

http://sophiesarttour.com/

District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

www.vietnamartist.com

http://www.tarakys.com/

* * *

https://shopee.vn/artartsupplies

Cty Oanh & Mads

PM Arts & Crafts Store

Ho Chi Minh City

152/11/8 Bình Long,

https://www.oanhmadsvn.com/

Phu Thanh, District Tan Phu,

Blue Space Art Gallery

Sophie’s Art Tour

District Bình Thanh,

* * *

* * * Galerie Quynh

* * * Huong Nga Fine Arts

118 Nguyen Van Thu,

76/2A Tay Hoa Street, Phuoc

Ward Da Kao, District 1,

Long Ward, District 9,

* * * GRADO Art Studio

Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City

170 Nguyen Van Huong, Thao

http://galeriequynh.com/

http://www.huongngafinearts.vn/

Dien, District 2, Ho Chi Minh City

Any suggestions or

http://www.grado-artstudio.com/

comments, please email us.

* * *

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atiqsaigon/

* * *

Ho Chi Minh City https://www.pmhandmade.com

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