Ron Tran

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Ron Tran (born 1972) is a visual artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. [1]

Contents

Background

Tran was born in Saigon, Vietnam and currently lives and works in Vancouver. He studied Integrated Media Arts at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Tran’s practice involves sculpture, photography, video, performance and installation. His work concerns itself in relation to public and private space, and addresses ideas of individual ownership. He has been featured in articles by Canadian Art. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums including the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery. [2] [3]

Career

Tran integrates performance in many of his artwork in various form. His practice explores the ways chance and coincidence influence daily life. He often removes himself from his art and inserts art into public life. Tran’s work often involve personal investment and occasional voyeuristic cruelty. The performative quality of such work signal his ongoing interest in social interactions both as subject and medium. Tran is a former member of Norma art collective, which started in collaboration with other fellow Emily Carr University art students. [4]

Photography

The photography series Fruit Tree (2017) is a collaboration between Ron Tran and Mathew Sawyer. Without a clear purpose in mind or the intention to travel in the most efficient manner, the two artist went on a short road trip exposing themselves to random opportunities that comes in their way. The work consists of performative actions and subtle interventions that were conducted resulting in the form of photo documentation.

Performance

Tran integrates performance in many of his artwork. His practice explores the ways chance and coincidence influence daily life. He often removes himself from his art and inserts art into public life.  Apartment #201 (2008) is a piece Tran created for “Everything Should Be Made as Simple as Possible, but Not Simpler”, an exhibition focusing on minimalist and conceptualist strategies by young artists. Tran removes his apartment door and displays it in the gallery for the duration of the exhibition. Apartment #201 takes place both in the gallery and in Tran’s apartment where his private life is suddenly exposed and thus vulnerable. Property was stolen during the happening of this piece.

During the sixth Berlin Biennale in 2010, Tran relocated several park benches previously situated on the opposite side of the Oranienplatz in Berlin, Germany, into closer proximity across the square’s main path. Used most commonly by the area’s large Turkish population and with strict gender division. The newly conversational distance incited a rage of new uses. Tran’s re-positioning transforms bench into auratic object of its prior uses while creating new, although temporary, situation. [5]

It Knows Not What It Is (2011) by Ron Tran is a collaborative installation by a collective of 11 artists and writers, including Angus Ferguson, Angus Ferguson, Pietro Sammarco, Kevin Chong, Erica Stocking, and Paul Kajander. In this work, Tran invited the group of artists to create artworks based on the stick’s form and to be mounted along with Tran’s. Here, each artist remain anonymous as if they are Tran’s silent objects, being placed in a place of collective worship. [6]

Awards

In 2012, Ron Tran was named recipients of the $12,000 2012 VIVA Awards, granted annually by the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation. [7]

In 2015, Ron Tran was named emerging artist in visual arts in the 2015 Mayor’s Arts Awards. [8]

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibition

Group exhibitions

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References

  1. ↑ "Ron Tran". 221A. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
  2. ↑ "Tran, Ron | Biography". www.mutualart.com. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
  3. 1 2 "Special Collection: Acquisitions and Archives". Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  4. ↑ "Norma". normasite.com. Retrieved 2022-04-21.
  5. ↑ Kaelen, Wilson-Goldie (2013). Art Cities of the Future: 21st Century Avant-Gardes. London: Phaidon Press Limited. p. 318. ISBN   978-0714865362.
  6. ↑ "Ron Tran's It Knows Not What It Is swells with reverential meaning". The Georgia Straight. 2011-03-28. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
  7. ↑ "Marian Penner Bancroft nabs Audain Prize, while Ron Tran and Beau Dick receive VIVA nods". The Georgia Straight. 2012-04-11. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
  8. ↑ "2015 Mayor's Arts Awards recipients announced". The Georgia Straight. 2015-11-04. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
  9. ↑ "June 2011, Ron Tran @ Charles H. Scott Gallery". Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  10. ↑ "Goodbye Charles -- Libby Leshgold Gallery". libby.ecuad.ca. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  11. ↑ "Vancouver Special: Ambivalent Pleasures - Library and Public Program". 221A. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  12. ↑ "A view believed to be yours, MAY 15–JUNE 27, 2015 - Catriona Jeffries". catrionajeffries.com. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  13. ↑ "Soleil Politique at MUSEION Bolzano". MUSEION. 2014-09-27. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  14. ↑ Matejko, Agnieszka (2013-09-25). "GEOFFREY FARMER: "The Intellection of Lady Spider House," Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Sept. 14, 2013 to Jan. 12, 2014". Galleries West. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  15. ↑ "what is waiting out there - Biennales - Berlin Biennale". www.berlinbiennale.de. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  16. ↑ "Triumphant Carrot: The Persistence of Still Life". Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
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