Smithsonian American Art Museum
Tiffany Chung: Vietnam, Past is Prologue
March 15, 2019 – September 2, 2019
Internationally acclaimed artist Tiffany Chung (b. 1969, Da Nang, Vietnam) is known for her multimedia work that explores migration, conflict, and shifting geographies in the wake of political and natural upheavals. The Smithsonian American Art Museum has invited her to present work that responds to the Vietnam War, and its legacy on the culture and population of the United States. The project stems from the facts of her own life: Chung’s father was a pilot in the South Vietnamese army who fought alongside American forces, and the family immigrated to the U.S. as part of the post-1975 exodus from that country. Chung examines the narratives that have been used to understand the war and its aftermath, and probes how the America we know today was shaped by Vietnam. The exhibition is presented in conjunction with SAAM’s major exhibition Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975.
Sarah Newman, The James Dicke Curator of Contemporary Art, is organizing the exhibition.
Tiffany Chung, Operation Lam S?n 719, 30 Jan.–6 April 1971, 2018, acrylic, ink, and oil on vellum and paper, Courtesy the artist and Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York. © Tiffany Chung
