Asia Art Archive presents a talk by Nora Taylor, scholar and curator specialising in contemporary art in Vietnam.

Subversion or Experimentation? — Performance Art in Vietnam Today

The scholar will provide a brief overview of performance art practices in Vietnam today and try to contextualise them within the history of contemporary art. Contrary to some perceptions, performance art is not simply another stage in the evolution of contemporary art in Vietnam. It is a challenging art form that is not often understood and has become a complex way for some artists to express themselves. Rather than attempt to define performance art in relation to art theory, this talk will provide some observations on the complexities of performance art and how it may or may not relate to existing art historical discourses.

Nora Annesley Taylor is Professor of Southeast Asian Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is author of Painters in Hanoi: An Ethnography of Vietnamese Art (Hawaii, 2004 and NUS Press, 2009) and numerous articles on Vietnamese modern and contemporary art. She is also curator of several exhibitions including: 'Changing Identity: Recent Works by Women Artists from Vietnam, for International Arts and Artists'; 'Blue Memory: An Installation by Tran Trong Vu', ASU Art Museum, 2004 and 'Breathing is Free: New Work by Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba', co-curator with Heather Lineberry, ASU Art Museum and SAIC. She received her PhD from Cornell University in 1997. She has lived and travelled in Vietnam off and on since 1992. She grew up in Geneva, Switzerland, has lived in France, taught at Arizona State University, National University of Singapore and UCLA. She joined the academic advisory board of Asia Art Archive in March 2009.