Phuc Le: Forced Entry

Forced Entry features work from Phuc Le's three continuing projects: So Hip!, Grindr Tests,
and Expedition: Southwest.

So Hip! is an ongoing photographic series spanning from 2007 to present. In each photograph, Le dresses his father in an outfit from his own wardrobe in order to emulate youth fashion - mainly, ads and images from American Apparel, Vice Magazine, and similar sub-pop-media. The series evolved from commenting on cultural commodity to re-connecting with family and in its current state, he finds beauty in making these images as a chronological catalog of portraits, simultaneously, of both himself and his father.

To produce Grindr Tests, Le uses Grindr - the first phone-app of its kind that utilizes GPS technology to locate gay men who are, by chance, online at the same time in close vicinity to one another. Discovering the app through friends who are active users, he is interested in opportunities that this technology may bring to a community living on the fringe. With the approach of a fashion "test shoot", Le puts himself in the position of both participant and observer as he flows  in and out of his subject's bubble. The photographing session is almost always arranged for one to two hours in the late afternoon, and afterwards, a mini-date of sort continues either at a bar or a restaurant as compensation for the men's cooperation (instead of money exchange).

Expedition: Southwest came out of the notion that a new cultural identity is able to establish without assimilating to an existing group of people. For Le, the approval from the land holds more validity than the approval of any hegemonic group. As he journey out on road-expeditions in hope of understanding the regional landmass that he calls home and creating myths in the manners of Darwin and Lewis & Clarke, Le projects himself onto unyielding landscapes of the American Southwest.

Even though the three projects are seperate, Forced Entry is supposed to be viewed upon as a Whole - to be experienced in the same way you would with different tracks on a music album. His photographic works are as traditional as they are contemporary, combining family portraits and landscapes with fashion imagery to emulate mythological portraits of religious figures and pop icons. Exploring the roles of an anthropologist, a photographer, director, stylist, and even casting agent, his photographs start as a visceral viewing experience then slowly reveal the layers of interactions between himself and his subjects. Being part participant and part observer, he explores the limbo space between an insider and an outsider of cultures, gender, and systems.

Born in Vietnam (1985) and developed in Orange County and Los Angeles, he is currently living and working in New York as an artist-in-residence at Flux Factory. His residency and the exhibition Forced Entry is made possible in part by the New York Community Trust Fellowship.

Text by Mille Højerslev Nielsen in close collaboration with Phuc Le.

Conversation Project with Victor Valqui Vidal. E-mail #3

As a student of Visual Culture my aim is to decode visual phenomena (of any kind) relevant to today’s society, sociality and the subject’s self-understanding. But as my major interest is contemporary art I also use the field of Visual Culture to expand common art historical and aesthetic concepts.
I'm not an art historian and before I was accepted into the master program of Visual Culture I studied literature. What I know about contemporary art I have taught myself. It started as a new way of seeing. I want to be able to gain or rather maintain the sensitivity and curiosity of a child, but at the same time navigate like an old adult. Within the last 3 years I have met with and worked for different artists and gone to exhibitions in all the cities I have visited around the world. Latest I have initiated and organized my own artistic projects, but actually and to be honest, what I know about contemporary art, I have learned through my writings. To me writing is also a way of using my eyes, it's really essential to me.

I wanted to become a part of Flux Factory not only to test and develop my professional competences and improve my English, but also because I want to get a deep understanding of an artist collective by observing it from the inside. At Flux Factory I will assist with organizing exhibitions and events and I will develope (new) strategies for marketing the exhibition program. But besides this opportunity which I'm really honored and excited to have been given, most importantly I'm at Flux Factory to do research and collect material for my future master thesis. Flux Factory is a non-profit art organization that supports and promotes emerging artists through exhibitions, commissions, residencies, and collaborative opportunities. Flux Factory produces four major and dozens of smaller exhibitions per year, runs a residency program, and presents monthly events. I find Flux Factory interesting because it divides from traditional art institutions by taking form of an experimental laboratory and a dynamic and ever changing collective.

My interest in this field started in the winter of 2009, when I became a part of Party and Lost, a social and aesthetic experiment, a group of groups, founded by 8 women from 4 different artists group. As Party and Lost Bank & Rau, Hesselholdt & Mejlvang, Randi & Katrine and Ingen Frygt ('No Fear') made an exhibition, also titled Party and Lost, which were presented at Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, in the summer of 2010. For 5 months I was their assitant and I helped with fundraising, promoting their thoughts and writing texts, I took part in some of their discussions and I assisted in the art production proces and with installing the final exhibition. We all (artists as well as assistents) gave our hearts, minds and bodies to this project. Party and Lost worked around these question:

”Does the relation between the individual artist and the strivings of a collective mirror the challenges of any group? Is the collectively executed artwork closer to life? Or does the single group member’s renunciation of self just result in a self-sufficient social-ego? Is any artist group, intentionally or otherwise, an artwork in itself – a laboratory for social relations?”

 

 

 

Party and Lost truly changed my life and my perspectives – mostly for the better. I don't think it's too much to say that thanks to Party and Lost I am where I am today. For my master thesis, I'm interested in contuining the investigations of Party and Lost and trying to get closer to answer these questions.

 

I will elaborate on this next Sunday. To be continued...

Conversation Project with Victor Valqui Vidal. E-mail #2

Sunday January 12th

Dear Victor.

Thank you for your reply to my text. Last Sunday was only my third day at Flux Factory. While I was writing, it felt like my jetlag had returned. In Brooklyn I had a whole apartment to myself and most of the time it was really quiet, almost too quiet for a city like New York. So it was really strange to move in at Flux and suddenly be around a lot of people. My studio is next to the kitchen, which is the biggest space we share, so it gets quite noisy easily and there's a lot of distractions. It's not just fragments from the other residents talks and discussions, that goes trough my walls. There's a ventilation duct in my studio. It's connected to the kitchen in some way. It makes heavy noices when people open the refrigiator, turn on the oven and boil water. Or at least, that's what I imagine. Sometimes, I'm also able to hear when the N or Q train enters the 39 Av platform, which's located close to Flux. In general, noises calm me down. It makes me less restless. I like these new sounds. So after all, to be at Flux Factory feels like home. I feel more comfortable here than I did in Brooklyn.

Your text made an impression. You're not the first one to call me brave. Most of the people I have met so far, have admired the fact that I moved to New York all by myself. I didn't have any friends here to begin with or any other connection to the city besides Flux Factory. People, both friends, family members and strangers, back in Denmark have called me brave too. To be honest, I'm not sure if I consider my act as brave. I'm actually not sure how I would define the word 'brave'. But I have spend a lot of time this week trying to understand that one word.

It's funny you mention "The Ugly Duckling". That fairy tale has always been important to me. Especially as a child. I was happy back then, but still, through out my childhood, I had a constant feeling of being different, as if I came from another planet. My first friend was named Tommy and he/she was invisble. Our ways seperated when I started school, because we both thought it was for the best. In school, I tried to fit in, not because I wanted to, but because I felt I needed to. When it became too much, I would go home to my room and draw or write stories. It got easier with time. As I grew older I established new relationships, made dear friends and learned to navigate in different landscapes.

In folklore (in this case fairy tales), the characters don't try to be anything they're not. And if they go against their nature, they will fail. In reality it's different. It's easier to pretend and get away with playing a role - in short, not to be you.

I guess for me, to be brave is to have the courage to be yourself and not go against what your heart tells you. To be brave is to stand two feet tall, even when people around you want to change you, make you act a certain way, or just put you down.

To re-quote H.C. Andersen and remember his words in another context: “To be born in a duck’s nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan’s egg.”

In that sense, I see myself as brave. And for each day that passes, New York teaches me to become even braver.

One of the things I like about Flux

 

Tonight it's Flux Thursday! Dinner prepared by us from 8 pm and ARTIST SALON with presentations by Fluxers from 9.30 pm. IT'S FREE! Bring friends and drinks!