Du 04-06-2016 au 13-11-2016


Ascendant Artist series
The Propeller Group—an artist team based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam—blurs the boundaries between fine art and media production. Two of the group’s members, Matt Lucero, and Tuan Andrew Nguyen, studied at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California with Daniel Joseph Martinez. 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 and irreverent 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.

The Propeller Group’s exhibition at the MCA is the first in the Ascendant Artist series to feature both a collective and artists working in Asia. The show 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 AK47 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.

AK-47 VS. M16, THE FILM

The Propeller Group has made their first feature-length movie: a film montaged from a variety of sources, including Hollywood movies, promotional videos, documentaries, news reportage, and YouTube clips. The film will be screened in the Edlis Neeson Theater during the following dates and times. Look for additional screenings in the coming weeks.

Sat, Jun 4, 2–4 pm
Sun, Jun 5, 2–4 pm
Tue, Jun 7, noon–2 pm and 5–7 pm
Tue, Jun 14, noon–2 pm and 5–7 pm
Tue, Jun 28, noon–2 pm and 5–7 pm
Sat, Jul 9, 2–4 pm
Tue, Jul 12, noon–2 pm and 5–7 pm
Tue, Jul 26, noon–2 pm and 5–7 pm
Sat, Aug 6, 2–4 pm
Sat, Aug 20, 2–4 pm
Sat, Sep 3, 2–4 pm
Tue, Sep 6, noon–2 pm and 5–7 pm
MCA Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
220 E Chicago Ave - Chicago IL 60611, ()