Danh Vo & Rirkrit Tiravanija | New Editions

In a collaborative print, Danh Vo and Rirkrit Tiravanija reflect on questions of belonging and otherness, drawing on a wide range of references that point to both intimate personal histories and broader collective narratives.

The work is grounded in a photograph from Rirkrit Tiravanija’s family album, taken in 1968 by his father, in which the young Tiravanija and his sister look directly into the camera. His sister is positioned in the foreground, appearing heavily out of focus. At the same time, Tiravanija is standing in the background and is sharply visible, wearing pointed prosthetic ears that evoke the iconic character Mr Spock from the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Mr Spock’s dual heritage, being half Vulcan and half human, renders him the only alien aboard the Starship. This condition of otherness gives rise to a constant internal struggle, resonating with broader themes of belonging and identity.

Danh Vo intervenes by adding a walnut wooden frame with engraved glass, which casts subtle shadows onto the print. The walnut wood used for the frame originates from Julie and Craig McNamara’s walnut farm in California. Craig McNamara is the son of former United States Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara (1916–2009).  Robert was a key advocate for U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which was in stark opposition to his son. The print appears in two different versions, each bearing different statements carved into the glass, which were calligraphed by Phung Vo, Danh Vo’s father, who learned the craft of calligraphy in Vietnam. Over the years Vo has incorporated his father’s calligraphic handwriting into multiple artworks. Half of the edition is framed behind glass that bears the inscription Tout ce qui t’empêche de partir, tout cela est ton ennemi (All that prevents you from leaving, all that is your enemy). This statement is a direct quote discovered by Danh Vo in the birthplace of the French saint Théophane Vénard (1829–1861), a Catholic missionary who was decapitated for his faith in a Vietnamese prison. In a renowned artwork, 2.2.1861, 2009, Vo asked Phung Vo to hand-copy Vénard’s farewell letter by hand. A letter Vénard addressed to his own father as he awaited execution. The frame glass of the other half of the edition carries the inscription In Aliens We Trust, as a pun on the official US motto In God We Trust. This serves as a counterstatement to the current political climate, particularly the contentious immigration policies in the United States where Tiravanija currently resides. A slight modification turns the statement into a gesture of worship for otherness.

In a single print, an image of childhood alienness is transformed into a site of shared authorship and an accumulation of interconnected ideas. The archetypal relationship between fathers and sons appears to permeate, intersect and intertwine, as one follows the different narrative paths of Vo and Tiravanija.