Goethe Institute is proud to present Nguyen The Son’s artwork with an exhibition “Houses Facing the Street - Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City” from November 10th – December 10th in Gallery Cactus, HCMC.

The exhibition focuses on an aspect of the development of the two cities in modern day Vietnam: a rapid change which has spread without having been noticed marked by huge billboards that cover entire house fronts and compete for the viewer’s attention with their bright colors. Thus the colorful advertisement is dominating the picture of many streets and it remains the only thing the human eye captures by passing by. Old residential buildings or even more modern ones, which have long shaped the face of the cities, are changing: Instead of windows and balconies which facilitate the communication between neighbors, tall billboards seal the houses off, both towards the street, the outside, as well as the inside. What remains is a lightless living space behind the façade losing in value as well as a city with a changed face.

Nguyen The Son seizes upon the issue of these billboards and, by digital means, makes it into entire streets. Using a unique printing technique on Xuan paper and silk, the artist manages to intertwine both old and new techniques in an appealing union. Furthermore, the exhibition features photographic installations which play with the beholder’s perception and blur the line between reality and fiction. This extraordinary exhibition by Nguyen The Son which focused on Hanoi and was shown in March at the Goethe Institute Hanoi, comes now enlarged with a new series of pictures from Ho Chi Minh City. Nguyen The Son, who has already focused his attention on other phenomenons of big cities urban landscape in earlier works, invites the visitor to compare both cities by means of his pictures and to discover differences with its own eyes.