Sung Tieu
Perfect Standard
Opening – 26 APR 2024, 6-9 pm
Sung Tieu’s heterogeneous, conceptual practice defies easy categorisation. Her work integrates rigorous historical research with the autobiographical, allowing her to simultaneously address the deeply personal as well as institutionalised structures that delineate societal norms. Psychology, social obligation, and power structures are key themes in her artistic inquiry, as is the deliberate blurring of boundaries between the private and public spheres.
“For me, the term ‘material’ encompasses two aspects. First, it reflects the depth of research I delve into. Second, it signifies the materialization of the artwork within the exhibition space. I strive to derive inspiration from my extensive research, often gravitating towards materials I possess intimate Familiarity with due to previous encounters.”
(Sung Tieu with Amelia Saul in conversation, in: The Brooklyn Rail July/August 2023)
Rooted in her own upbringing and personal experience, Tieu’s art navigates the intricate dynamics of belonging and displacement. Recently, her focus has increasingly turned towards her personal history. Born in Hải Dương, Northern Vietnam, and immigrating to Germany shortly after the country’s reunification, Tieu’s practice reflects a profound exploration of the alienation stemming from these two once-divided nations and their ideological disparities.
“Sung Tieu is a Vietnamese-born artist who immigrated to Germany as a child. She contends with notions of history and analyses transnational movements of both people and objects–be it through the investigation of diaspora communities or the commercial hyperaccelerated ways that global capitalism is reproduced. The thematics of migration, exile, and legal gray zones permeate her work between installation, film, and sculpture, as the works portray and fictionalize autobiographical experiences.”
(Maurin Dietrich, In the Night, I Hear ‘em Talk: Sung Tieu. In conversation with Maurin Dietrich, in Mousse, May 2019)
For her debut solo exhibition at Galerie Barbara Weiss, Tieu will present a new body of work examining standardization and measurability as tools for control, surveillance, and extraction. The project delves into the intricate interplay between colonial interests, bureaucratic governance strategies, and their lasting legacies of oppression and erasure. It highlights the asymmetry inherent in the universal application of the metric system implemented in Vietnam, revealing its dual nature as both a mechanism of exploitation and a facilitator of capital accumulation and global trade.
“Tieu investigates a banal genre of psychological discipline: the hostility, violence and paranoia embedded in supposedly neutral bureaucratic spaces and architectures.”
(Cassie Packard, Not Fracking Around, in: Art Review Summer 2023, p. 55)