Danh Vo at Kunstenfestivaldesarts

The projects of Danh Vo – born in Vietnam and raised in Denmark – weave personal intimacy into broader themes of history, power and memory.

He takes objects steeped in historical and design contexts and realigns them in his installations and sculptures. Aestheticised in a new way, they amplify and transcend their pasts. When invited to participate in this year’s festival, Vo put forth a recently acquired 1970s Fiat hearse.

He wished to repurpose the sleekly designed vehicle, with its large windows and spacious interior, as a mobile flower shop nomadically serving the people of Brussels. He collaborated with young car mechanics and electromechanics in training at a local school (Athénée Royal de la Rive Gauche, Laeken) to collectively design the transformation of the hearse. They worked together for months, taking art and floriculture courses, and composing bouquets using plant and mechanical components.

Two worlds that seemed far apart now come together in this constant shift of meaning found at the centre of Vo’s artistic practice. The result is a new aesthetic venture, a visually iconic mobile sculpture circulating through the city. Vo’s work is a complex image of our society with multiple conflicting registers, a memento mori, a chariot spreading beauty in the urban sphere.