Danh Vô

Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Berlin
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 2013

This work is in excellent condition. The lifting to the cardboard at a small number of areas, specifically at the edges, is inherent to the nature of the medium and the artist's process. This work is encased in a Plexiglas box.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Danh Vō is an artist whose personal history is inextricable from his work. Born in Vietnam in 1975, the year that marked the end of the American War, his family became victims of the Cambodian-Vietnamese conflict that broke out immediately afterwards. Fleeing the country by sea at the age of four, with hopes of reaching America, his family ultimately settled in Denmark after being picked up in the Pacific Ocean by a Danish cargo vessel. Vō’s conceptual oeuvre is filled with themes of displaced identity, immigration, colonization and global communication. An artist engaged with intensely complex questions who yet adeptly distills such themes into objects of unique splendor, it is of no coincidence that he has been selected to represent Denmark in the 56th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

Alphabet (L) is a vision of shimmering gold leaf with the letter ‘L’ stamped out of the middle, to reveal an unfolded cardboard box beneath. The present work creates a dialogue between fine art and everyday throwaway material. To create these works, Vō collects used consumer packaging from Vietnam and applies gold leaf to the surface, a luxurious material that bespeaks both the capital prosperity of the West and the ritual spirit of Vō’s Vietnamese upbringing. The mixture between the gold leaf and the consumer goods packaging also serves to heighten the idealization of the commercial and commoditized life in the West. The cardboard packaging and its association to commerce and the commodity have proven a valuable material for many of art history’s most innovative artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol. Vō takes up this legacy and transforms the medium of cardboard packaging in his own inimitable manner. Collaging letters from the worldwide naval code system—the Bowditch Alphabet—the artist adopts an alphabet used as a shipping industry standard to advance global trade and nurture colonization. Vō appropriates traditional gilding techniques associated with glimmering Southeast Asian temples upon unfolded carton boxes like those of condensed milk, a foreign product of trade introduced to Thai and Vietnamese consumer cultures through the war. Juxtaposing the historical and the personal, Vō’s work is a rivetingly complex meditation on beauty and migration.