Press Release: And That Which Was Always Known

23 Feb 2015

Yavuz Gallery is pleased to present And That Which Was Always Known, a group exhibition of six locally significant and internationally acclaimed artists living and working in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, and curated by Roger Nelson.

The exhibition and accompanying catalogue proposes a consideration of artistic practices that reflect the historical continuities, inherited legacies and accumulated pasts that underlie the contemporary, on both personal and collective levels. This view of artists’ work serves as a counterpoint to dominant narratives that emphasize the rapid transformations and cultural ruptures in Southeast Asia, with the effect of obscuring important continuities; or conversely that focus on ancient traditions, and thus tend to disavow the dynamism of cultures. In And That Which Was Always Known, it is the span of an artist’s lifetime that is taken as the defining temporality for understanding recent practices in the region. Encompassing painting, photography, video, documented performance and installation, the exhibition foregrounds the diversity of approaches by which artists make sense of their world.

The artists joining the exhibition are respected as leading figures in their local contexts, and all have also exhibited in prestigious galleries, museums and biennales in Asia and internationally. These six artists are exhibiting at Yavuz Gallery for the first time in And That Which Was Always Known.