Introduction of the artist:

The Propeller Group (Vietnam)

The group was formed in 2006. Phunam born in 1974, Saigon, Vietnam. Matt Lucero Born in 1976, Upland, USA. Tuan Andrew Nguyen born in 1976, Saigon, Vietnam. Selected solo exhibitions: 2012 The History of the Future, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong / 2012 Static Friction, Galerie Quynh, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam / 2010 Your Name Here, Sàn Art @ L’Usine, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam / 2007 Requiem for a Wall, Galerie Quynh, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam / Selected group exhibitions: 2012 Six Lines Of Flight, SFMOMA, San Francisco / 2012 The first Los Angeles Biennial / 2012 The Ungovernables, The New Museum, New York / 2011 Singapore Biennale / 2010 8th Shanghai Biennale / 2008 the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial / 2006 5th Asia Pacific Triennial ofContemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia.

Introdution of works:

In the Mall, there are also a number of oil paintings from Dafen – China’s ‘Number One Oil Painting Village’. Dafen is a small village near Shenzhen that, since the 1990’s, has quickly grown into the world’s largest oil painting re-production and wholesale base. Every year, Dafen produces and sells over one million oil paintings, and has been recognised by China’s Ministry of Culture as an ‘Exemplary Unit of the Cultural Industry’. The Grandview’s commercial environment would seem to be a natural sales platform for Dafen Village’s prize commodity, and so after conducting related research, the Propeller Group has invited a group of Dafen painters to produce a series of oil paintings for the Triennial. Only, there are certain caveats: the painters will not use any of the great masters’ paintings as models, and are allowed no restrictions on possible form or content: the only ‘requirement’ seeming to be originality itself, in an attempt to re-awaken these painters’ brushes – brushes held by their hands and theirs alone – and to revive a ‘cultural industry’ that has lost itself in a society of commodity consumption.