Art Event I

The first art event I went to was an artist talk by Jerry Truong. He is from northern California and his parents are from Vietnam. They fled during the war and lot of his work relates to this. His work is supposed to expose the inequalities and injustice in society. He uses pretty much every medium to get the message across. He talked a lot about the history of his family, how his mother and father grew up as well as how they met. He also tied a lot into his child hood and the things that went on in everyday life like his mom going to work or his brother getting a haircut.

A lot of his works may be considered modern and minimalist but have good value. For example Untitled is about a girl and tells a story of her and sex slavery and pirates and such. This is a work that has good execution and history. It comes from the girls that would be in the boats from Vietnam and to America encounter pirates and then be slaves. There are iconic and symbolic representational elements as well as metaphors and implied objects. Another example is Biến/Mất , that is basically a plywood boat looking structure with a projector, polytarp all over the floor and some sort of mylar on the wall and ceiling. This was supposed to represent the ocean, all its greatness and how people get lost, disappear, and transform from it. This work had good intention and seemed to have a lot of thought in what each thing represented. This one is very interactive and uses the view as part of the work for them to see themselves as they go more into it. This work uses a lot of relation objects to represent things and a somewhat metaphoric atmosphere.

Over all his art is very cool and kind of edgy thou I was not a huge fan I understand where he is coming from and what he is trying to do. I liked his talk and I seemed that he was very interested in his work. He is also a good speaker.