The Artist

1972 Thai Binh Vietnam

Nguyễn Văn Cường’s satirical works on paper comment on the complex forces and contradictions that have occurred with westernization in Vietnam in the last 20 years. They bristle with aggressive symbols of the new Vietnam. Some works may look like US dollars but upon closer inspection are beautifully detailed drawings of US dollar copies but with words, symbols and portraits that refer to historical and contemporary Vietnamese politics. Bold and dynamic, his brush & ink paintings combine the fluidity of brushwork with the stark presence of graphic work. Ben Franklin’s head appears in the most unlikely places–his famous likeness, of course, adorns the $100 bill (the Asian currency of choice even before the economic collapse) and carries heavy symbolic weight for Cuong.

Cuong is adept at working with the full range of Vietnamese art materials, including lacquer, silk and local hand-made giấy dó paper. He has also experimented with performance and installation art and is an occasional collaborator with well-known Hanoi performance artist Đào Anh Khánh.

Cuong was born in the north eastern coastal province of Thái Bình in the heart of the Red River Delta. He graduated from the Vietnam Fine Art University in 1996 after five years of study, and became part of the triad of gifted artists who were his classmates: Nguyen Van Cuong, Nguyen Minh Thanh and Nguyen Quang Huy. These three artists benefited greatly from the exposure to contemporary art given to them by Veronika Radulovik, a teacher from Germany who was a lecturer at the university at that time, who exposed them to conceptual art, performance and other free form styles of thinking.

The artist has exhibited widely in Vietnam and internationally. His works are in important private collections as well as the Singapore Art Museum.