BIOGRAPHY
UuDam Tran Nguyen
A rare pioneer Vietnamese born, American educated Contemporary Artist, UuDam's risk-taking and thought-provoking art practice is unique in today's contemporary art scene. He is taking many art forms to a new level by pushing the boundaries of all the mediums he touches: video, sound, sculpture, installation, performance, photography, sculpture, technology, new media, and app art to understand the bigger questions of life.
Born in 1971, UuDam is a product of East and West culture, the Cold War. UuDam grew up in an artistic family where artist father, Rừng, a well-known painter, writer, and poet, was his first artistic inspiration. Initially he chose painting but later decided to pursue sculpture. UuDam briefly attended the University of Fine Art in HCMC (Saigon), where he studied with his Vietnamese Russian-trained teachers. Later, he immigrated to the US and graduated with a B.A. from UCLA in 2001 and received his MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2005. He studied with important American artists such as Charles Ray, Paul McCarthy, Sarah Sze, Bill Viola & the Pulitzer-winning art critic Jerry Saltz. He traveled internationally for talk and exhibitions.
UuDam created huge-scaled art installations using hundreds of motorcycle exhausts to pump inflatable sculptures atop a 64-story tall tower. He successfully summed up the image of the world's contemporary citizens in the iconic images of Contemporary Saint Giongs, a combination of the old Vietnamese myth Saint Giongs, European Saint George the Dragon Slayer, and 21st-century social realities. His famous two video sequence, Waltz of the Machine Equestrians and Serpents' Tails, weaves the rapid development of Vietnam with the world's ancient myths to show how much more intimately we are all linked together on this planet than we often think, the consequences of our actions and the way out.
His Fuck Buttons project has received praise from Time Out New York by Howard Hale and went on to be exhibited at many galleries in Los Angeles and New York from 2005, proving very relevant until now. The project could be an excellent remedy for our time in a climate of extreme politics and ideology.
UuDam also created the world's first crowd-sourcing L2D app art, License 2 Draw enabling people to draw on canvases ten thousand kilometers away. The final product is abstract drawings carried out by "contributors" from all over the world. With this system, people can draw using his L2D User Interface to command his L2D robots from their phones.
UuDam takes traditional sculpture to a new level in his ongoing epic Time Boomerang Project. He creates new forms of global travel-sculpture-performance art. By sea and air travel, he has been launching his five bronze fingertips into five oceans of different continents. With this new work, UuDam wishes to elevate his regional South China Sea conflicts onto a vast scale and space where mediative talks can occur without impassioned fistfights fueled by heated nationalism. His ongoing ambitious 8-phased Time Boomerang project expands on South East Asia's current geopolitical situation millions of years into the past and future.
On August 2019, UuDam completed 15 days of travel across the Pacific Ocean on France's second-biggest freighter, CMA CGM A. LINCOLN, from Asia (China) to the U.S. (Los Angeles) for the TIME BOOMERANG project. Following that disembarkation, on the 17th of September, from a catamaran sailboat, he launched the 3rd bronze fingertips into California's Pacific coast, completing another essential step of Time Boomerang’s Phase #2: The New Conqueror with a Good Passport. Having completed his "conquering" of Europe, Australia, and the Americas performances, his future destinations for "Time Boomerang's" next two fingertips will be Africa & Antarctica.
UuDam exhibited and lectured at many major international art venues including the Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art (France), Yokohama Museum of Art (Japan), the High Line Art (NYC), Aichi Triennale (Aichi Art Center), Queensland Museum of Contemporary Art (Australia), Bildmuseet Museum (Sweden), the Asia Pacific Triennial 8th (Australia), OnSite Art Fest (Taipei), Art Stage Singapore 2016, Kadist (San Francisco) and the Jewish Museum (New York), Rhode Island School of Design Museum (USA), Singapore Biennale 2013 (National Museum of Singapore), Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, NTU CCA (Singapore), SUNSHOWER (Mori Art Museum), Kuandu Fine Art Museum (Taipei), Esplanade Visual Arts (Singapore), Shanghai Biennale 2018 (Power Station of Art), Kaohsiung Fine Art Museum (Taiwan), University of Colorado Boulder (2018), Orange County Museum of Art (USA) and San Jose Art Museum (USA), Galerie Quynh (HCM) in 2019, Te Papa Museum (New Zealand), Motplus Art Space (HCM), A FARM (HCM), Rục Rà Rục Dich, TOONG's nation-wide traveling exhibition, the Phúc Tân Public Art Project (Hà Nội), ASIA CULTURE CENTER (S. Korea), VIETNAM DESIGN WEEK 2020, ICISE (Vietnam), Asia Art Biennal 2021(Taiwan), Nguyen Art Foundation (2022), Fullbright University VietNam (2023), Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Keynote speaker +Artist 2022, 2023), LIM HAK TAI GAllery (University of the Arts Singapore), Ngee Ann Kongsi Galleries (NAFA), etc.
His works have been mentioned and reviewed in top art magazines: Art Forum, Flash Art, Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, Vietnam News, Blouin Art Info, The New York Times, Singapore Today Top Pick, Saigoneer, Los Angeles Times, Phnom Penh Post, Vietnam National VTV, HTV, Korean T.V. and Newspaper, Art Radar Journal, LA Weekly, Time Out New York, Arttribune.com (Italy), Zing.vn, Orange County Weekly, The Dot Magazine, Art Monthly London, Japan Times, Degree Critical (NYC), Brooklyn Rail, Cobo Social, Art Radar Journal, Yicai Shanghai, Heritage In-flight Mag, Phu Nu weekend, After Image (vol 47), The Thao Van Hoa, Tuổi Trẻ weekend, & Forbes VN, Vietcetera, Dantri news, Art Republik, Elle Decoration, etc.
UuDam won the Jury Selection Prize of the prestigious Japan Media Art Festival 2015 with his License 2 Draw project. With the Public Phuc Tan Art Project, he won the respected Bùi Xuân Phái Art Prize 2020. He also received the THE BEST CONCEPTUAL ART PRIZE with ECO-Đi, an artwork crossing 6 disciplines conceptual art/product/sculpture/performance/intervention/advertising from Vietnam Design Week 2020.
UuDam is also a cofounder of the collective XEM artist book.
UuDam bases in Sài Gòn, HCMC, Việt Nam.
Vietnamese short version:
Nguyễn Trần Ưu-Đàm sinh ra tại Kontum, Việt Nam. Anh nhận bằng Thạc sĩ Mỹ thuật từ Trường Mỹ thuật Thị giác SVA - New York và bằng Cử nhân Nghệ thuật từ Đại Học UCLA – Hoa Kỳ. Trước khi đi du học, anh đã theo học Khoa Điêu khắc tại Trường Đại học Mỹ thuật Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh. Nền giáo dục Đông Tây độc đáo đó góp phần hình thành nên sự đa dạng và mạnh mẽ và chất thơ trong cách anh thực hành nghệ thuật.
Các dự án của Ưu Đàm phản ánh các vấn đề xã hội, lịch sử, địa chính trị, môi trường, và hợp tác dùng Internet với một sự hóm hỉnh nhất định. Sử dụng phương tiện truyền thống cũng như các ứng dụng công nghệ cộng đồng và các công nghệ mới khác, bộ tác phẩm độc đáo của Ưu Đàm vể mặt triết học kết nối khoảng cách đông - tây, địa phương - toàn cầu bằng cách đối mặt với các vấn đề phức tạp cấp bách của cuộc sống hiện đại ở Đông Nam Á và xa hơn. Anh được biết đến với các tác phẩm tiêu biểu như Vũ Điệu Của Các Kỵ Sỹ Máy, Rồng Rắn Lên, Time Boomerang, License 2 Draw và Eco-Đi.
Ưu Đàm đã diễn dạy và tham gia nhiều triển lãm danh tiếng quốc tế như: Đại học Boulder Colorado; Bảo Tàng Do Thái; Bảo Tàng Nghệ Thuật Quận Cam (Hoa Kỳ); Biennale Thượng Hải, Power Station of Art (Trung Quốc), Đại Học Nghệ Thuật Singapore, Bảo Tàng Nghệ. Thuật Lyon (Pháp); Asia Culture Center (Hàn Quốc); Asia Art Biennale (Bảo Tàng Nghệ Thuật Đài Loan); Bảo tàng Mỹ thuật Kuandu (Đài Loan); Bảo tàng Nghệ thuật Mori và Trung tâm Nghệ thuật Quốc gia Tokyo; Aichi Triennale; Bảo tàng Nghệ thuật Yokohama (Nhật Bản); The High Line (New York); Bildmuseet (Thụy Điển), Asia Pacific Triennial 8, Bảo tàng Nghệ thuật Queensland - Gallery Nghệ thuật Hiện đại (Úc); Asia Society (New York); và Singapore Biennale tại Bảo tàng Nghệ thuật Singapore, vv.
Anh đã nhận giải thưởng danh giá của Liên hoan Nghệ thuật Truyền thông Nhật Bản với các tác phẩm License 2 Draw và là thành viên sáng lập của nhóm XEM và ấn phẩm tại Sài Gòn (HCM) Việt Nam.
Tác phẩm của anh nằm trong các bộ sưu tập của Bảo tàng Nghệ thuật Queensland - Úc; Quỹ Nghệ thuật Kadist - Pháp và Hoa Kỳ; Asia Society - Hoa Kỳ; Bảo tàng Nghệ thuật Đương đại MAIIAM - Thái Lan, và Nguyễn Art Foundation – Việt Nam, cũng như trong các bộ sưu tập cá nhân ở khắp các châu lục trên thế giới.
English Short Version:
UuDam Tran Nguyen was born in Kontum, Vietnam. UuDam earned his MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and a BA from UCLA in the USA. He also attended the University of Fine Art in Ho Chi Minh City for four years to study sculpture prior to his studies in the US. This unique dual East-West education informed his diverse art approaches, often with a sense of humor.
His various projects poetically engage with society, history, geopolitics, the environment, and internet collaboration. Employing traditional media as well as crowdsourcing apps and other new technologies like remote control robots, Nguyen’s distinctive body of work philosophically bridges the east-west, local-global divide in a way that confronts the pressing issues and complexities of broad, modern life in Southeast Asia and beyond. He is internationally known for works such as Waltz of the Machine Equestrians, Time Boomerang, Serpents’ Tails, License 2 Draw, and Eco-Đi.
UuDam has been lecturing and exhibiting internationally in prestigious exhibitions such as University of Colorado Boulder, USA; Orange County Museum of Art, USA; Asia Culture Center, S. Korea; The Jewish Museum, USA; Singapore Arts University; Shanghai Biennale, Power Station of Art, China; Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art, France; Kuandu Fine Art Museum, Taiwan; RISD Museum, USA; Mori Art Museum and The National Art Center Tokyo, Japan; Aichi Triennale: Aichi Art Center, Japan; Yokohama Art Museum, Japan; The High Line, USA; Asian Art Biennale, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts; Bildmuseet, Umea University, Sweden; Asia Pacific Triennial 8, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Australia; Asia Society, New York, USA; Singapore Biennale, Singapore Art Museum.
UuDam is a recipient of the prestigious Japan Media Art Festival with his work License 2 Draw and a founding member of the XEM collective and publication in Sài Gòn, Việt Nam.
His works are in the collections of Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art – Australia; Kadist Art Foundation – France / USA; Asia Society New York – USA; MAIIAM Museum of Contemporary Art – Thailand; Nguyen Art Foundation, and private collections worldwide and in Vietnam.