The Archive Body: Group Exhibition
Upcoming exhibition
Overview
Trong Gia Nguyen, Orlando, Jepson Street, 2017
What do we imagine when we think of an archive? Typically, a library or repository — a collection of interconnected parts that form a greater whole like a human body. But what about the individual elements that constitute this body? Archives may appear as complete entities, yet they emerge from countless singular components: fragments, traces, and records that accumulate over time, and are ever-changing and expanding.
The Archive Body brings together artists who engage with archive-making through direct, hands-on practices. It explores a different approach to archival work, one that emphasizes physical labor: gathering, sorting, imprinting, and layering. These artists create the individual components that form larger archival bodies — transforming found materials and generating new records through physical encounters with the world. They source forgotten footage, make rubbings from street surfaces, collect ephemeral objects, document fleeting moments.
From found objects to drawings, to films and photographs, these archival components take many forms. What unifies them is their function as sites for preserving information and experience. The presentation reveals both the labor and intention behind archival construction.
This exhibition is complemented by a collaboration with Reading Room, transforming the mezzanine into a temporary reading space that functions as an active archive. A selection of Reading Room's art book collection is displayed alongside Galerie Quynh's exhibition monographs and publications. The space presents monographs by Vietnamese artists represented by Galerie Quynh alongside international art publications, creating an interactive environment where visitors can explore research materials and methods that connect to the exhibited works.
As one of the few public resources of its kind in Vietnam, Reading Room makes books—especially those from independent publishers—more accessible to the local Saigon creative community. Archives naturally grow through addition and dialogue. By contributing Galerie Quynh's art monographs to Reading Room's evolving collection, we are contextualizing Vietnamese contemporary art within a global framework and adding to an international archive body.
