“002 Fusion”: A Jest in Three Acts
Installation view of Fusion, 2025. Courtesy of Open Kitchen, photography by Anh Nguyen.
What is “Asian” art? But really, in this day and age, what utility might there be for such appellations that conjure, at times, both kitsch and an eye roll toward that constructed notion of the oriental mystique? Is it indeed a nod toward unheard sentimentality, a differentiated outlook, or by the sheer fact of ethnic main d'oeuvre powered by some celestial big other? Maybe, though highly improbable. Categories, particularly within the cultural labor sector, are oftentimes, if not most of the time, fraught and incomplete. Organizationally, they’re more gestures than science. And nothing kills the Zeitgeist more than to make that which elevates the soul a science. DOWN WITH EMPIRICISM! Also, yuck! Yet, perhaps it is because of this incompleteness, this imperfect segregated border between the otherwise transnational and fluid practices of art making, where some of the most provocative questions arise surrounding nationality, craft, and our sense of a worldly disposition.
Curated by Phil Zheng Cai, the collaborative installation Fusion by three separate artists for the Open Kitchen initiative asks: What makes a conscious self-inflected “Asian” corpus? Running between May 10th and 30th and sponsored by THE BLANC x Li Tang Community as part of Li Tang’s fifth-anniversary independent curatorial projects, the larger show is an amalgamation of various artists’ works that are both divergent and suggestive. Cognizant of the asymmetry in perspectives regarding the East versus West conception of authorial art practices, Fusion is a co-concepted pas de trois joining Anh Nguyen, Felisa Nguyen, and Huyen Tran to assemble and disentangle the overworn trope of the individual nature of creativity. The three pieces, separate but cohesive, are in reality an assemblage of minor multiplicities bound together by material commonality. It is a collaboration whereby the ideas of the artists are negotiated with their pre-existing work, rather than from scratch. Here, the treasures are in the details. Implementing photo, sculpture, steel, cardboard, plastic chairs, and aluminum cans, the installation reverberates in color and texture throughout.
Installation view of Fusion, 2025. Courtesy of Open Kitchen, photography by Anh Nguyen.
The three components of the installation act as “frames,” “walls,” and “floors” to the condition of edifying each other in mutual support. In an industry where the repetitious banter of “delicate” and “crafty” for so long has undermined the intellectual underpinning of Asian art, why not invite parody to frame another cheeky narrative? Forget that cult of the solitary attic (studio) genius, let’s take that “co” in cooperation with sincerity. What if? Yes, we, they, are all the same? Not same same, but different, rather entirely, and intentionally interconnected. An unthinkable abomination, a devious tongue-in-cheek solidarity as craft and practice.
Standing by one of the pieces reveals only a partial view of the other two. Kneel next to another, and the view once more shifts by way of level. Propped up with a wooden frame, the 3D see-through “painting” offers another specter of muddled transparency. Behind the frame, mini stone pagodas lie domino-style, resting on one another. Pair this with condensed milk cans, well, you’ve got yourself a hodgepodge of Asian iconography.
Installation view of Fusion, 2025. Courtesy of Open Kitchen, photography by Anh Nguyen.
More on the nose, the “Asian” elements most apparent are a distraction from the cohesive disjunction. The red plastic mini-stools, so often seen at hawker stalls and sidewalk eateries, call attention to themselves as inverted support, doubling over themselves and amounting to pillars that hold up the wooden frame. Their structural stability is questionable, but their idea is firm. They are, in essence, still suggestive of a kind of chair, but their newfound “utility” highlights the whimsical possibility of things finding themselves in novel reinvention. In how many ways could one suggest the idea of a chair? But these aren’t chairs. Ceci n’est pas une chaise.
Of that same structure of dubious utility—functional until proven otherwise—these little stools found across many parts of Southeast Asia, despite apparent ubiquity, aren’t really about purpose. They are, irrefutably, l’objet d’art, duplicated in sensation across the three pieces. And in that duplicity lies a sly analogy.
Perhaps akin to that salient economic narrative of Southeast Asia’s positionality as China’s backyard factory (all three artists are Vietnamese), or “China +1” as crucial to the functioning of the global supply chain, these chairs are presented as useful only under specific, often externally defined, circumstances of entanglement. In this vein, might one not say that “Contemporary Asian art” also only functions as a kind of provisional object—its purpose legible only when it submits to the organizing logic of the global market? Useful until proven uncooperative in its construction? This coercive, formalization of the art object, in order words, exceeds marketing, and instead pre-categorizes and subsumes otherwise very different objects and practices under the guise of recognizability. In short, the facile privileging of art that better serves as brands.
Installation view of Fusion, 2025. Courtesy of Open Kitchen, photography by Anh Nguyen.
This show, of course, delights in such disorientation, gesturing toward the non-specified “Orient” that exists in fine art’s Euro-centric lexicon while refusing the tidy categorical packaging that global markets so often require. Provenance, by any means necessary. This impulse is most evident in the almost satirical labeling of “Asian Contemporary” in many auction houses and of the world’s most competitive markets. Take, for example, two unnamed powerhouses in Hong Kong, which, despite the almost 40% drop in sales the previous year, remains committed to this symbolically rich, though hilariously impoverished (and maybe anachronistic) banner. A jest, of course. But perhaps more structurally, it is branding that is the issue, serving as a reminder that the region remains, for all intents and purposes, a brand.
And it is precisely here that the collaborative premise of the show reenters as a kind of counter-gesture. Collaboration, of course, is not novel. Collectives and communes are hardly foreign concepts to artists and curators, nor are collaborative shows of varying scale. What is more interesting, perhaps, is to think of collaboration as an encounter with work in medias res, not from scratch, but amid the detritus of previous gestures. Identities, after all, are always already in formation. These works were not conceptualized in isolation but were compiled from prior or pre-existing materials, carrying with them non-specific, non-delineated forms of completion. In other words, they are assemblages born from the messiness of prior existence—a prerequisite, perhaps, for any art that seeks not merely to represent, but to remake what has already been offered, given, labeled.
Installation view of Fusion, 2025. Courtesy of Open Kitchen, photography by Anh Nguyen.
002 Fusion is curated by Phil Zheng Cai and features the work of Anh Nguyen, Felisa Nguyen, and Huyen Tran.
