SPATIUM - OPEN STUDIO BY SCULPTOR LƯƠNG VĂN VIỆT

An unprecedented experimentation with space-time-material-form 

Manzi Exhibition Space, 2 ngõ Hàng Bún, Ba Đình, Hanoi
Free Entrance

• Phase 1: OPEN WORKING STUDIO - from 20 Dec 2024 to 2 Jan 2025 (10.00 AM - 4.00 PM)
  For 2 weeks, manzi will turn into a working studio where the artist will complete his large-scale sculpture and handle the installation directly. Visitors are welcomed to watch and record throughout the process.

• Phase 2: OPEN SCULPTURE-SPACE & INTRODUCE THE WORK - from 5 Jan to 19 Jan (11.00 AM - 07.00 PM)
  The installation-sculpture artwork, whether completed or unfinished, is open to the public and invites interactions.

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Spatium is a Latin word, which roughly translates to "space," encompasses many concepts in many different contexts: it can refer to the general place/room of existence, the physical space governed by natural laws, or the area intervened and covered - a significant quantity that must be calculated and considered in architecture and construction. When used in more abstract contexts, the term ‘spatium' serves as the root for notions and theories in social studies or philosophy, referring to the voids, gaps, and factors that define the distance or connection, as well as specific theory in ontology about perception and reality.

Spatium by Lương Văn Việt, which literally comes into being right inside Manzi Exhibition Space, is not just a sculptural practice but rather a space-shaping and space-questioning exercise in numerous aspects. This exhibition room that hosted more than 30 different showcases and installations with works of various forms and materials continuously residing and moving out over the last 5 years, inevitably have been marked with all traces of intervention in the space: erecting and demolishing, hanging on the ceiling and digging down the floor. Now, the entire space is flattened literally, all the holes be filled and the marks be covered, all the walls be repainted in white, only white - a thorough stripping and cleaning in a way of going back to the beginning, a return to the pure state: empty and clear. A blank space. It prepares and waits. Large corten steel plates, then are hauled in, bent, and put together into a single artwork hanging on a support system, allowing visitors to walk around, lean down, and look into it. All steps of this procedure are carried out in just one place, which have fused all creative spaces - artist’s studio, installation/construction site and an exhibition room - into a singular existence. By this way, a place will actively nurture and create an object instead of passively waiting to be occupied and taken over. Space determines the structural form and presence of the displayed object; conversely, a piece of sculpture, when moving and adapting in space, also simultaneously rewrites the surrounding rhythm and regulates the breath of that place. In this sense, a sculpture is no longer labeled as a distinct and unchanging unit or a singular presence defined only by shape, weight, and volume against a white background, but rather the space itself, including the container and the contained, the occupied and the blank, the solids and voids, being and nothingness, all constitute a sculpture.

Aside from such experimenting with interpretations in work of art, installation & sculpture, this adventure at manzi also unveils numerous possibilities within the gaps that exist between 

idea and reality, 

concept and creation, 

                                         as well as between 

industrial materials and manual techniques, 

technical calculations and aesthetic values. 

The variable is also generated from the approach of Spatium: such the rotation, the duality of creating and exhibiting spaces, and the dimensions of experiences within them. Artist studio -  the working environment which used to be determined by the artist's internal, psychological, and private experiences, in this case, have been transformed into an external, social, and public area that is responsive and uncertain.

Spatium at Manzi, therefore, is a brave and unconventional endeavour by an audacious artist who believes strongly in the creative process itself. Like a dedicated traveler, Viet walks tirelessly on a journey but not for a final destination; unflinchingly he embraces all the encounters and revelations along the way, whether they come in the form of challenges or setbacks.