𝒪𝓁𝒾𝓉 𝒪𝓁𝒾𝓉 𝒞𝒽𝑒 𝒞𝒽𝒶 𝒞𝒽à 𝒰𝓎𝓉𝓉 𝒞𝒽𝒾𝓉 𝒞𝒽í𝓉𝓉…continues Trương Công Tùng’s experiments in materiality and sculptural form, as well as his inquiry into life in a post-human environment where reproduction is shaped by industrialisation and mass consumption. Sprawled across the exhibition space are various forms of existence, each under particular influences: the cell’s self-defence mechanism; a machine’s unwavering precision and tireless determination to construct an ideal environment for a birth that will never be birthed; betrayals masqueraded as invitations; and a life of slow, arduous death as the light of ideology has gone out. Beneath the cacophony of sounds and movements lies a place — simulated, yet teeming with life.
Is this a laboratory?
Or what remains of a long-gone civilisation?
GLOSSARY (as curatorial text)
Trương Công Tùng
The sketch of a good day… olit olit che cha chà uýtt chit chítt…if you think this world is such a bad place, perhaps try looking at other worlds
2026 — present
sculpture
100 water-filled plastic pigeon eggs, wooden cage covered with clear PU sheet, automatic egg-turning system, temperature and humidity sensor, aluminium basins, light bulbs, water, paper…
dimensions variable according to space & time
A for Assemblage
…is an act of putting many things together. In the field of sculpture, assemblage refers to a practice that makes use of manufactured materials, objects, or fragments not originally intended as art materials. An important artistic turn of the twentieth century in the West, assemblage reflects an era of industrialisation, mass production, and mass consumption. This practice is likened to that of a junk shop, where goods are diverse and somewhat random — collected by the shop owners, but not made by them. “The discourse is not artistic but economic; it uses the terms of modern capitalism that surfaced at the end of the nineteenth century.” (p. 168) Indeed, works created by this logic derive their meaning from the very use, history, and journey of their elements.
Trương Công Tùng
Watching the sky, watching the earth…watching the day, watching the night
Truth is, truth is
Do you see the stars
2016 — present
A three-part sculpture-installation:
6a: 32-inch Sony flat screen, K+ receiver
6b: 6-petal aluminium satellite dish, 36 wooden balls, termite mound, plastic net, beehive, metal funeral floral frame, tree root, fishing net, rubber, lightbulb, bells, antenna,…
6c: 6-petal aluminium satellite dish, speaker, amplifier, sound…
dimensions (lifespan) variable according to space & time
While Trương Công Tùng’s sculptures reflect the capitalist conditions of the world we inhabit — in which almost everything can be manufactured, sold, and purchased, and transactions reduced to a single click — his incorporation of live and organic matter such as insects, water, air, and natural weather phenomena pushes this logic further still. Each work carries the weight of the world: its history, its present and future, its beauty and its hypocrisy. Together, they conjure a post-human wasteland where the boundary between the organic and the artificial has dissolved, truth has become indistinguishable from lie, and life and death stretch toward infinity — perhaps crossing over somewhere in that distance.
B for Body
…is how this exhibition is imagined. Each work functions like a body part.
Trương Công Tùng
26.784 days and nights, the sun rising and setting… They have come to find their eyes
2026 — present
4-part installation:
a: heating lamp triggered by a sound sensor, dried gourds, lacquer, motor…
b: resistance wire heating up to 42 Celcius degree, newspaper, paint
c: speaker, sound
d: PVC tube, water
dimensions variable according to space, time
C for Chance
…means possibility. And possibility can mean many things. It can mean that one day, you decide to raise pigeons from scratch, only to receive a box of water-filled plastic eggs. While the initial plan fails, it ironically inspires you to make art. The eggs — thought never to be deserving of metamorphosis, a biological privilege reserved for sentient beings — are now being given a chance at life. Housed in an incubator with an automated system working day and night, the most ideal environment is carefully constructed: the right humidity, the right temperature, all in anticipation of a hatching that may never come.
But chance can be cruel. It can mean sleepless nights where the whole world around you temporarily comes to a standstill, leaving you alone with your observations and your worries. You realise how small and vulnerable the human body can be.
C for Contradiction
The third morning
Văn Cao, Five mornings that is outside of truth, 1960
This morning — it wasn’t me who woke up
Inside of me someone is breathing
In front of me lurks a half-day half-night sadness
Half of the street filled with moonlight, the other half sunlight
From then on we both have our own thoughts
We become each other’s enemy
Two ends of a spectrum that shares a centre
Two people within a yielded one
Scheming against each other
Accuse spy curse yield
Unaware of day and night real and unreal
From that moment I am no longer real.”
Trương Công Tùng
Portrait of a symbol disintegrating with the weather…
2016 — present
sculpture
propaganda billboard, scaffolding, rope, insects, sun, wind, rain…
dimensions (lifespan) variable according to space & time
S for Sculpt
According to the dictionary, it means to create solid objects that represent a thing, person, or idea out of a material such as wood, clay, metal, or stone. This definition points toward the classical tradition of sculpture, where tactility is an essential characteristic — whether in the process of making or of viewing. Over time, however, the meaning of this action has transformed a great deal, rendering such a definition increasingly outdated. The act of sculpting is now used more liberally, and its meaning has expanded significantly. In the beauty industry, for instance, it refers to the act of tattooing hair-like strokes to fill in sparse areas on the scalp or eyebrows. A similar shift in meaning applies in art. Sculpting engages the senses — but not necessarily touch alone. A sculpture can extend its field through light and sound. In this way, the sculpture not only represents the act of sculpting, but itself sculpts the space it inhabits — and all that is within it.
TEAM
Artist: Trương Công Tùng Curator: Linh Lê
Logistics & Exhibition production: Bích Trâm (HCMC), Linh San (Hanoi)
Graphic design: Đức Cao
Artwork production: Studio ARTiculate (Lê Thuận Uyên, Dương Dương, Nguyễn Thu Giang), Tạ Lê Duy Anh, Nguyễn Như Bách & his students
Exhibition technicians: Nguyễn Long Biên, Nguyễn Trần Nam
Photography: Dan Nguyen
Volunteer: Phan Thị Phương Chi, Trương Diệu Anh, Phạm Tuấn Đạt, Đỗ Thị Phương Anh, Bùi Diễm My, Nguyễn Thị Linh Nhi, Lê Thảo Nguyên, Phạm Hà Phương, Minh-Thư Nguyễn…
Merchandise design & production: Đức Cao, Ivy Võ, Chương Phạm
This presentation is organised by Á Space with support from Goethe Institut Hanoi as part of Thuỳ Anh Đặng’s Transient ecologies.
We are also very thankful for Vân Đỗ, Châu Hoàng, Thảo Hoàng and Lê Xuân Tiến’s help.