Danh Vo’s iconic conceptual sculpture series We the People is a scrupulous replica of 250 individual pieces of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s Statue of Liberty. Vo’s segmented version is faithful to the original, employing the same fabrication techniques and copper material. However, he never intends to assemble all the pieces of the statue; instead, We the People invites us to experience the world-renowned icon on a human scale, and to reflect on the meaning of liberty from multiple perspectives. From mid-May to early December 2014, We the People was shown in New York City under the auspices of the Public Art Fund with its assembly of parts shared between City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge Park in the borough of Brooklyn. The work brings together a constellation of historical and cultural references that frame Vo’s process, calling attention to the similarities and differences between the means of production in the 19th century and today’s global economic system. While the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to the US, paid for (in part) by American citizens, and constructed by French laborers, Vo’s We the People was conceived in Germany, fabricated in Shanghai, supported by his French gallery, collections and art institutions worldwide, and dispersed to exhibition venues in more than 15 countries. The title for this work – and the exhibition – borrows the first three words of the preamble to the United States Constitution, underscoring our collective role in shaping democracy. Accordingly, each sculpture in We the People is part of a conceptual whole, conjuring the full form of Lady Liberty in our mind’s eye. A poetic gesture as much as a sculptural feat, Vo’s multipart copy of the Statue of Liberty is a metaphor for the circulation of cultural values: like a monumentally-scaled puzzle, these forms ask us to reconsider liberty as it exists globally and locally.

A Vietnamese-born Danish artist, Vo’s personal history is inextricable from his art. Soon after the end of the American War, the Cambodian-Vietnamese conflict broke out. At the age of four, Vo and his family fled from Vietnam by sea on a boat constructed by his father. They were picked up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean by a Danish freighter and were brought to Denmark where the family eventually settled. Accordingly, Vo’s conceptual oeuvre is charged with themes of displaced identity, immigration, colonisation, power structures and global communication. Underpinning all of Vo’s work is a fascination with the phenomena of cultural and commercial cross-pollination associated with globalisation. The artist has said: “I don't really believe in my own story, not as a singular thing anyway. It weaves in and out of other people’s private stories of local history and geopolitical history. I see myself, like any other person, as a container that has inherited these infinite traces of history without inheriting any direction. I try to compensate for this, I’m trying to make sense out of it and give it a direction for myself.” (Danh Vo, quoted in Francesca Pagliuca, “No Way Out: An Interview with Danh Vo,” Mousse Magazine, February 2009, online).

In a gracefully elegant and concise manner, the current works embody the epitome of Vo’s powerful alchemy of multifaceted traces of history and objects. Vo has endured and embraced his own form of globalization through the myriad of exhibitions and residencies in his career; each one has an impact on his work. The artist once claimed: “I don’t believe that things come from within you, to me, things come out of the continuous dialogue you have with your surroundings” (quoted in Daisy Jones, “Danh Vo’s Cinderella story”, Dazed, August 2014). Now regarded as one of the most important mid-career contemporary artists of our time whose oeuvre dissects critical global issues in a uniquely sophisticated and personal manner, Vo is currently being honored with a mid-career retrospective, Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The survey exhibition offers spectators an immersive experience in which one glimpses into the private past and mind of the artist while finding resonances through establishing personal association with the assembled fragments which each has its own set of interpretation possibilities.

傅丹仿照雕塑家弗雷德里克・奧古斯特・巴托爾迪設計的自由女神像，鑄造出250件自由女神像部件，成就了他的經典概念雕塑系列《我們人民》。傅丹沿用自由女神像的製作方式與銅製用料，打造出與原型相同比例的複製版本。不過，他從未打算將所有部件合併，而是希望藉著這些真實比例的複製雕塑，讓觀眾欣賞這座世界著名地標的風采，並從多個角度反思自由的意義。2014年5月中至12月初，在公共藝術基金會的贊助下，《我們人民》的部件分別於紐約市曼哈頓下城市政廳公園及布魯克林自治區的布魯克林大橋公園展出。傅丹在創作過程中曾參考過不同歷史和文化資料，突顯十九世紀與現今全球化經濟下生產方式的異同。自由女神像是法國贈予美國的殊禮，由美國公民支付（部份）建造費，並由法國工人製造；傅丹的雕塑作品《我們人民》在德國構思、於上海製作，並得到代表傅丹的法國畫廊、以及世界各地的收藏館及藝術機構大力支持，當中不同部件曾在超過15個國家展出。本作與它的展覽標題「我們人民」出自《美國憲法》序言中頭三個字，強調了公民在建設民主社會時所擔任的集體角色。同樣地，《我們人民》中的每件雕塑部件都是整體意識形態的一部分，藉著這些這種概念，觀者可在心目中構建自由女神的完整形象。傅丹按照原尺寸複製自由女神像的各個部件，這不僅是一個充滿詩意的構思，亦是雕塑創作上的壯舉。《我們人民》系列猶如一幅龐大的拼圖，象徵著文化價值的傳播，鼓勵世人重新審視「自由」對全球以至不同地區人民的存在意義。

丹麥籍越南裔藝術家傅丹的個人經歷與其藝術創作密不可分。美國戰爭結束後不久，柬埔寨與越南爆發衝突。四歲的傅丹與家人登上父親製造的小船，希望以海路逃離越南。一條丹麥貨船在太平洋遇到傅氏一家，將他們帶回丹麥定居下來。因此，傅丹的概念作品中充滿了身份失落、移民殖民、權力結構和全球通訊的主題。在藝術家的所有創作中，均可見他對全球化現象中文化與商業互相交融的迷醉之情。他曾言：「我不太相信自己的故事，或者說，我不相信它是個單一的故事。它與其他人在本地歷史及地緣政治歷史的影響下所衍生的個人故事互相交織。我覺得，自己和其他人一樣，都是一個繼承了無盡歷史痕跡、卻流離失所向的容器。我試圖彌補這一點，嘗試尋找箇中意義，並為自己尋覓方向。」（傅丹，引自弗朗西斯卡・帕柳卡，「沒有出路：與傅丹對話」，《慕斯雜誌》，2009年2月，電子版）。

本作外形優美簡約，體現了傅丹強大的創作力量，即擅長將不同的歷史痕跡和物件的故事融合為一體。傅丹曾參與過多場展覽，亦曾在不同地方居住，這些經歷令他發展出一套對全球化現象的個人見解，每一段經歷都對他的創作產生影響。藝術家曾表示：「我認為，世事的流動並不是單向的，一件事的發生不會止於你和我，而是在於你和周遭事物的不斷對話間」（引自黛西・瓊斯，〈傅丹的灰姑娘故事〉， 《Dazed》，2014年8月）。傅丹是現今公認最重要的事業生涯中期當代藝術家，透過風格別具、細膩複雜及充滿個人特色的創作手法，仔細剖析重大的全球問題。如今，紐約古根海姆博物館現正為傅丹舉辦一場事業生涯中期回顧展「傅丹：屏息凝視」，讓觀者身臨傅丹的獨創境域，窺探藝術家的過去經歷與思緒剪影，透過賞藝體驗萌生同理之心，並將自身經歷投射於展覽陳設之上，衍生出個人的觀點與解讀。