Mixed media (recycled packages of cigarette, film, candy... in a wooden box).

Description

Suitcase of a pilgrim, series of 3-dimensional works, started in 1994, developed periodically till 2006. Cardboard packaging boxes (mostly cigarette boxes) were cut out, painted by the artist, and thus transformed into small size sculptures. They were arranged in wooden-boxes with glass lid which were used by street-sellers for trade of the cigarettes and other small goods in 1980s - 1990s that allowed them to quickly to pick up the box and disappear when the police approached. The series have multilayered meaning (described in literature).

It consisted from sub-series depending on the type of images:

1) masks, monsters and lion-dogs;
2) insects;
3) Venus (series).

The works from this series first were exhibited at the 2nd Asia Pacific triennial, 1996, Brisbane, Australia and later at other local and international exhibitions.

Text by Iola Lenzi, PhD, Historian of Contemporary Southeast Asian Art. Lenzi has conducted extensive research on the contemporary practice of Vũ Dân Tân, located in the context of contemporary art in 1990s Hanoi.

Statement

Changing means moving

Moving is changing

But to move WHERE?

Buddha said: “If you go forward and

Cannot find the road, so, you should turn back, the road is behind you.”

That’s why we can move ahead,

To the right, to the left, or to the back.

Even when we stop,

Time is always moving.

So changing is moving, that’s why

We can say:

“I move therefore I change

I change therefore I am.”

It’s necessary to move, and the new road is always in front of us.

Amadeus Tan

1996

Original statement by the artist from the 2nd Asia Pacific triennial, 1996, Brisbane, Australia.