ABOUT THIS EXHIBIT
Along with Phunam, the third member, they share an interest in globalized street culture and a background in filmmaking. With this training, they operate as both an artist collective and a production company named TPG. Their ambitious projects are frequently anchored in Vietnam’s history or its current dynamics as a growing capitalist market, and yet they extend to address global phenomena, whether international commerce, the tools of war, or shared traditions across cultures. Working in innovative ways, The Propeller Group has developed a model that merges collaborative, conceptual art practices—partially steeped in the politically inflected artwork of the 1990s—with the forms and methods of popular media today.
IMAGE CREDIT
The Propeller Group, The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music, 2014. Single-channel film. Courtesy of The Propeller Group and James Cohan, New York.
ABOUT THIS EXHIBIT
The Propeller Group’s exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum presents a number of multi-part projects from the past five years, comprised of videos and related objects. Fade In tracks the fake antiques trade in Vietnam. The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music is a film that weaves together funerary traditions from Ho Chi Minh City and New Orleans. Other recent works scrutinize the histories of specific weapons: namely the AK-47 and M16, two rifles that in mainstream movies are often associated with Vietnam and countries in the West, respectively. This is the first time that these projects have been shown together since the group was formed in 2006.
The Propeller Group is organized by Phoenix Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston. Its Phoenix premiere is made possible by the generous contributions of Contemporary Forum, a support group of Phoenix Art Museum, and by Saltlick Family Trust Co.
IMAGE CREDIT
The Propeller Group, Untitled (Ox Head; The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music), 2014. Water buffalo skull, gold leafing, and brass rings. Courtesy of The Propeller Group and James Cohan, New York.
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