LANGUAGE AND TEXT: ARTISTS
VONG PHAOPHANIT
Vong Phaophanit
Neon Rice Field (1993) Short-listed for the Turner Prize (above)
Vong Phaphanit
Conceptual Framework
Background
Phoaphanit was born in Laos and lives and works in London. He has worked
in a range of forms from sculpture to installation with a particular emphasis
on site- specific locations. He has used a variety of materials such as
lead, bamboo, rice, film, rubber, silk, and ash, but the most recognised
of his work uses neon tubing which he has formed into the calligraphic Laotian
text. Phaophanit speaks Vietnamese, Laotian, French, English and Thai and
thus language, its processes, inclusions, and exclusions, has long been
the main motif of Phaophant’s work.
Techniques
Prior to 1996, he used language as a physical, plastic material; the fragmented
Laotian script was essentially meaningless. Language and text in Phaophanit’s
work has more to do with the suspension of meaning than with its communication.
It is characterised by a sense of paradox. The paradox lies in the simultaneous
preoccupations. The first, is that of language in all its dimensions (the
material, the semantic, and poetic). The second is of the forms (perhaps
meta-language) that lie beyond language.
Intentions
The use of the neon tubing for calligraphic texts contains rich metaphorical
symbols both in the surface associations of two materials as possible polarities
of East and West. However, Phaophanit is anti-didactic in his use of language,
that is no message at all. Rather, he sees language as a material and meaning
is created and recreated through the materiality of the work itself.
For the artist, language is more than a system of signs, or a code to be
adhered to. It is also a malleable material. Heightening the material quality
of language in this way does not remove its sematic function but rescues
it’s sensuous dimension (often marginalised) Phaophanit is aware that
if you name something you control it “To name is to possess, to own,
to control”.
Artworks
Azure Neon Body (1994) consists of a row of blue neon signs in
the form Laotian words laid out in a haphazard trough cut into the gallery
floor. The words are undecipherable, rather forming a tangled glowing mass
which take on a physical presence of its own. The audience also receives
the blue glow, changing skin colour.
Untitled 1995 (1995)
6 lines of fluorescent red and green neon and Laotian words.
340x40x340cm.
Here the words, (created in neon tubing) are sculptural, rising up from
the ground but following the line as one would expect in a book.
Plantae Lucom (2001)
neon, wax,
Traces Latin words for various Asian plants a witty sign for how culture
becomes a malleable object when filtered through various modes of language
and visual representation.
References
Tate
Gallery
Site of the Tate Gallery, London provides an image and outline of the artist’s
work when short- listed for the Turner Prize in 1993 with Neon Rice Field
(1993)
sculpture.org.uk
Biography and details of the artists interest in text in a contemporary
installation. This site also contains an extensive image gallery of the
artist’s work from 1992 to the present.
visualarts.qld.gov.au
Provides image and small outline of the artist and his work.
publicartonline.org.uk
This page provides a review of recent exhibition and curriculum vitae details.
axisweb.org
Provides an image of current work by the artist and links to other gallery
sites.
Oboussier, C., Vong Phaophanit, in the Shadow of Words ( Laotian )
Art Asia Pacific issue 29, 2001- Art and Language p43
Oboussier, C., Crossing Borders Vong Phaophant, Catalogue The Third
Asia –Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art Queensland Art Gallery,
1999, p216