Danh Võ
b. 1975, Vietnam
Element #C6.2, 2011
Copper
200 x 293 x 97 cm
Element #C6.2 is one of 250 pieces that make up We The People, Danh Võ’s 1:1 replica of New York’s Statue of Liberty. By pounding copper sheets over a cast of the statue, Võ remains faithful to the original fabrication techniques and material used in the 19th Century. However, Võ’s segments are never meant to be pieced together, and instead remain at a more human scale, allowing us to contemplate the meaning of liberty from a deconstructed, multidimensional perspective. As this particular segment depicts part of the drapery of the Statue of Liberty’s robe, viewers are invited to ponder the grip that Western politics holds over our current globalised landscape, as well as critique the power struggles underlying representations of feminine identities over the years. In this way, the conceptual similarity between the original statue and Võ’s replica also allows us to focus more on their differences in production and cultural context.
Photo: David Heald
Danh Võ (b. 1975) is a Vietnamese artist based in Berlin and Mexico. Influenced by his background as an immigrant and subsequent nomad, his works explore themes of self-identity, and how our history and national ideologies influence the way we perceive both ourselves and the world around us. Võ combines the historical, contemporary, and personal to produce his enigmatic, yet symbolically charged pieces, which bring to light how interwoven and related our histories are. Through this realisation, Võ seeks to destabilise the influence of national and political agendas which perpetuate systems of exploitation and suffering. Võ is a graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the Städelschule, and a recipient of the distinguished Hugo Boss Prize (2013) and the Arken Art Prize (2015). His works have been exhibited globally as well at various institutions including The National Museum of Art, Osaka (2020), Guggenheim Museum, New York (2018) and M+ Museum, Hong Kong (2018).
