photograph of Danh Vo´s nephew Gustav by Heinz Peter Knes;
writing by Phung Vo, pencil on paper;
fabric by Nanna Ditzel and furniture inspired by designs from Enzo Mari´s Autoprogettazione
Variable dimensions
在傅丹的《无题》(2020)中，文字来自傅丹父亲Phung Vo的手书。
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”是句古老的格言，意指老是工作的人会变得乏味和厌倦人生。如果你看过库布里克的恐怖片《闪灵》（1980），你可能记得，由杰克·尼科尔森主演的灵感枯竭的作家Jack，被人发现在纸上反复书写的正是这句话。傅丹的父亲Phung Vo其实并不认识他所书写的西方语言，拉丁字母的书写对他而言，更像是一种纯粹的劳动。
照片反映了长大成人的古斯塔夫（Gustav），他是傅丹在丹麦出生的外甥。自2012年以来，古斯塔夫时不时会成为临时的缪斯，出现在傅丹的作品中。这些照片由傅丹的生活伴侣、摄影师Heinz Peter Knes所摄。
In Danh Vo’s Untitled (2019), the calligraphy was hand-written by Vo’s father Phung Vo in his preferred font.
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” is a proverb used since the 17th century to express that someone who would do nothing but working would wear out and become a less interesting person. In an iconic scene from Stanley Kubrick’s film The Shining (1980), Jack Torrance (the main character played by Jack Nicholson) is seen typing this sentence endlessly instead of the play he was dedicating himself to write.
Since leaving his native Vietnam, Vo’s father has barely learned to speak, let alone write, any Western language Calligraphy for him, becomes an act of pure labor.
The photographs were taken by Vo’s lover and collaborator, the artist Heinz Peter Knes, capturing a confidant and self-realized individual.
Vo’s Danish-born nephew Gustav has served as an occasional muse since he was a child.
The paintings are from Danish artist Peter Bonde, who has deployed gestural abstraction for the past three decades, creating process-based paintings that in recent years have been applied to mirror foil surfaces.
Vo’s Self-portrait (Peter), 2005 presents a letter received from Bonde, then a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, recommending that Vo quit painting.
The daybed was inspired by Enzo Mari’s autoprogettazione (or “self design”), presented in 1974, is an emphatic return to the basic needs of humans, suggesting a reversion to an active relationship with the material world.
The fabric Hallingdal designed by Nanna Ditzel – the “First Lady of Scandinavian Design” – has been in continuous production since 1965.
The light is from the Akari series, designed by the Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988). Danh Vo has been exploring and researching Noguchi’s life and art continuously in recent years.
Too stubborn to be a statement for Utopian diversity, these various autonomies nevertheless co-exist as implicated and pragmatic alternatives to whatever is coming next.
