Michael Nguyen – Clarity of Vision, Fantasy of Interpretation

Exhibition from 24.10.2022 to 01.01.2023. The exhibition is open for external visitors. Please note our current rules (see below).

Due to the great interest, the exhibition will be extended until 01.01.2023.

About the artist

Most of the time Michael Nguyen focuses on small, everyday things, but through the subjective lens he gives them a new soul. "With my camera, I capture small things that we often don't notice in everyday life. I also like to observe people and photograph them in everyday situations." Michael Nguyen is a "publicity-shy" (Münchner Merkur) photopoet and artist who moves outside the mainstream, blurring genres. He has received numerous international prizes and awards. Most recently, he was awarded the Günther Klinge Culture Prize of the municipality of Gauting for special achievements in photography. "Most of the photos could only be taken because Nguyen has a special eye for his surroundings and gives even the everyday a second look." (Süddeutsche Zeitung).

In addition to his artistic activities, Michael Nguyen is editor-in-chief of the online magazine for photography and art: tagree.de.

Michael Nguyen is a member of FREELENS - Professional Association of Photojournalists, Germany.

The exhibition shows photographs taken between 2020 - 2022: architectural objects, plays of light and shadow, as well as reflections and architectures, which he took in various cities in Europe.

Clarity of Seeing, Fantasy of Interpretation

Today, artistic photography moves quite differently than it did just a few decades ago as a visual force and communicative intervention in the midst of an overflowing glut of images, whose production, management, and dissemination have long since gotten out of hand with conscientious control. After film, television, and computers, the smartphone in particular has catapulted us into a new image age. Often the challenge is to give the eyes an occasion to linger between their unsteady jumps from image to image. Michael Nguyen succeeds exquisitely in creating such an occasion with his photographs by creating clarity in seeing and challenge in interpretation through reduction and pointing.

Michael Nguyen is a flâneur. On foot, he seeks the encounter worth seeing in detail. His photographs show us buildings, streets, staircases, vehicles, and people of the kind that we might encounter at any time by chance in our everyday lives. The pictures confront us with single views of elements, focus their colors and forms in detail, and leave aside the manifold abundance of the surrounding. In this way, the images unfold a power of the particular: Something like this, but exactly how we haven't seen things before.

Nguyen likes to play with the seduction of the geometric, the regular, and the symmetrical. We find this everywhere as a testimony to the constructive power of a design oriented towards the ideal. Perfection is thus assumed, as is also the case with the impressively harmonized light and color gradients or surface textures. At the same time, the viewer is placed in an ideal position from which interest in what is depicted can unfold.

On the other hand, we are stimulated to let our imagination roam based on what is shown. For in the stylization we find numerous occasions to associate moods and longings. This is especially the case when people are seen in their appearance detached from movement. The contrast to the extraordinary view of their surroundings plays a special role. Whoever gets involved with the pictures of Michael Nguyen will in any case experience an enrichment: the special in the incidental.
 

Visitors please register at the main entrance at the reception. Please follow the instructions of the security staff.

In addition, the familiar hygiene recommendations apply:

• We recommend that visitors aged 16 and over wear an FFP2 mask. Children between 6 and 15 years of age should wear a medical mask. There is no obligation to wear a mask.
• We also recommend a minimum distance of 1.50 metres from people who are not members of your own household.
• We also recommend regular use of the disinfectant dispenser available in the entrance area.
• If you feel ill and/or suffer from acute respiratory illnesses, we ask you to postpone your visit to the exhibition until the symptoms have subsided.