Rehang in the exhibition »Isa Mona Lisa«

In the current exhibition »Isa Mona Lisa« in the Gallery of Contemporary Art, a new artist room has been set up with works by the artist Sung Tieu (b. 1958, Vietnam).

Sung Tieu addresses the exploitation and colonial power structures in French Indochina (now Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia). A double row of wooden slats runs along the wall. The lower ones are 1 Xích long – a pre-colonial Southeast Asian unit of measurement. The upper row shows the unit imposed by France in 1897, which allowed the colonial power to demand more taxes from the locals on the basis of a new land survey. Colonial coins are embedded as tracks in a path made of so-called anti-trauma mats. The path is made of rubber, as harvested by the French in Indochina and leads to a silkscreen print on the wall consisting of 24 individual film frames. It shows a group of children collecting coins that have been scattered on the ground by two women. They are the wife and daughter of Governor-General Paul Doumer, who issued the decree standardising land surveying in French Indochina in 1897. Colonial power structures are also hidden behind this seemingly generous gesture.

All works are purchases by the Stiftung Hamburger Kunstsammlungen – Fonds für Junge Kunst from 2024.

Together with Henrike Naumann Sung Tieu will be exhibiting at the German Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia in 2026.
 

To the exhibition