Form and info: Danh Vo’s “Autoerotic Asphyxiation” re-loaded in Palazzo Grassi, Venice
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- Danh Vo, Autoerotic Asphyxiation, 2010, 24 framed black and white heliogravures on paper of photographes of Dr. Joseph M. Carrier 1962-1973; two framed gravures 7.01.1980 (2010) and Bye bye (2010); 02.02.1861 (2009 –), ink on paper, framed; 1 metal plate depicting excerpt from department of correction, Delaware; cotton and silk curtains embroidered with plant details discovered by French missionary and botanist Jean-André Souilié in Southern China and Tibet, late 19th Century, from the archives of Musée National d’Historie Naturelle, Paris.
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- Danh Vo, Autoerotic Asphyxiation, 2010.
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- Danh Vo, Autoerotic Asphyxiation, 2010.
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- Danh Vo, Autoerotic Asphyxiation, 2010.
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- Danh Vo, Autoerotic Asphyxiation, 2010.
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- Danh Vo, Autoerotic Asphyxiation, 2010.
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- Danh Vo, Autoerotic Asphyxiation, 2010.
Four years after “Autoerotic Asphyxiation” was exhibited at the Artist Space in New York the basic information for its understanding are the same:
1) Danh Vo was born in Vietnam. In 1979 he and his family arrived as refugees in Europe from their Vietnamese home near the Cambodian border.
2) The curtains are embroidered with forms of plants collected in China and Tibet by missionary Jean-André Soulié. In 1905 Soulié was killed by Tibetan Buddhist monks.
3) The photographs documenting young Asian men were taken by Dr. Joseph M. Carrier, an American counterinsurgency specialist who worked in Vietnam for the RAND Corporation from 1962 to 1973. Carrier left his job because his homosexuality was considered a security risk. But by then he had produced a substantial photographic archive, which he bequeathed to Vo.
4) The five men in the 19th-century photograph were Roman Catholic priests about to leave France for missionary work in Asia. One of them, Théophane Vénard, was killed in Vietnam in 1861 during a wave of anti-Christian violence. The framed farewell letter on show is a copy of the one Vénard wrote to his father. It was handwritten by Vo’s father, who does not understand French but considers the words of this letter to be sacred, since Vénard was canonized as a saint in 1988.
5) The bizarrely clinical execution instructions are from the department of correction of Delaware.
Additional info, not authorized by the artist:
The work is currently on show at Palazzo Grassi, Venice, in the exhibition titled “The illusion of light”. Palazzo Grassi was designed by Giorgio Massari in 1749. It was the last Palazzo to be built in Venice before the invasion of the French army. The ceiling of the room where the piece is set is decorated with a painting attributed to Fabio Canal. It pictures the apotheosis of the Grassi family, a very religious one. Francesco Andrea Grassi (1661 – 1712) was bishop of Caorle since 1700 until his death, while Antonio Grassi (1644 – 1715) was bishop of Chioggia since 1669. At his death Antonio left the building where he was living in, his library, his courtyard, and his income to create a seminary for hosting, every year, six poor boys from Chioggia.
January 19, 2015
