Danh Vo

Danh Vo investigates the construction and inheritance of cultural values, conflicts, and traumas through his work, drawing inspiration from his personal experiences as well as historical and political events.

Biography of Danh Vo

Danh Vo was born in 1975 in Vũng Tàu, Vietnam. Following the Communist victory and the fall of Saigon, the Vo family, along with 20,000 other South Vietnamese individuals, were relocated to the island of Phú Quốc in 1975.

When he was four years old, in 1979, his family fled South Vietnam in a homemade boat and was rescued at sea by a freighter owned by the Danish shipping company. They subsequently settled in Denmark.

After completing his studies at Städelschule in Frankfurt, Vo relocated to Berlin in 2005. Prior to that, he had attended the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen but left after abandoning painting. He participated in residencies at the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles in 2006 and at the Kadist Art Foundation in Paris in 2009.

In 2005, Danh Vo held his inaugural solo exhibition at Galerie Klosterfelde in Berlin. He took part in the Venice Biennale in 2013 and was awarded the 2012 Hugo Boss Prize. 

His recent solo exhibitions were held at various prestigious venues worldwide, including Secession in Vienna, White Cube in London, The National Museum of Art in Osaka, Winsing Arts Foundation in Taipei, Take Ninagawa in Tokyo, Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris, and many more.

Additionally, Danh Vo has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including "Myth Makers: Spectrosynthesis III" at Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong (2022), "Monochrome Multitudes" at Smart Museum of Art in Chicago (2022), "Triennale di Milano: Enzo Mari" in Milan (2020), among others. 

Danh Vo's Art Style

Arising from personal connections and serendipitous meetings, Vo's endeavors culminate in objects and images that have accumulated multifaceted meanings in the world. These meanings may derive from their past ownership, their association with particular events, or their status as universal symbols.

The assimilation of his family into European culture and the political circumstances leading to their departure from Vietnam form an intrinsic part of Vo's artistic expression. His work sheds light on the interconnected threads of personal narrative and shared history that influence our identities. Employing historically significant found objects alongside personal anecdotes reflecting his own life, Vo delves into the broader implications of how meaning shifts with context and how objects gather symbolic significance over time.