“Darkness always contains both mysteries
and risks. It draws us into itself so that
we can find out hidden truths. At the
same time, however, it always brings
about anxieties, uneasiness…”
Nguyen Thai Tuan

Primae Noctis is pleased to present Nguyen Thai Tuan (1965, Vietnam) solo exhibition. On show paintings from the historical series "Black Painting".

"I find his work of the greatest interest in addition to being a moving and highly aesthetic denunciation of the present political and social situation in his Country.

So called "Social Realism" dedicated to celebrate an un-existing happy people in a simulacrum of democracy is turned inside out through his Art.

He does represent real people but the latter are devoid of any individual features.

The person is thrown back into the anonymous crowd. It is a nobody into un-inhabited clothes. The individual is no longer a human being but merely its simulacrum: a wheel in the governmental machine. This is exactly what the the government wishes to reduce its people. Astonishingly, no stronger denunciation of this state of affairs could be made by depicting, not the physical aspect of the person, but merely what it wears." - Arturo Schwarz