Van Nguyen

About

Van Nguyen (b.1996) is a Vietnamese-born artist based in London. Being an artist has been a challenging journey given Van’s professional training as a management consultant, advising major corporations as well as arts institutions. These experiences inevitably provide a dialectical foundation to her exploration of art and contemporary art as a discipline, particularly in her interrogation of the usefulness/uselessness of art, its separation/non-separation from “life”, and the role and responsibility of the contemporary artist towards “equitable access” in the art world.

Her works and research seek to introduce absurdity and humour as a form of critique into the seemingly structured and rational fabric of systems, institutions and societal norms. Her practice manifests in objects, interventions and participatory performances, often characterised by direct conversations between artist and audience, and by the locating of her works in their realm of relevance beyond the gallery.

Van’s latest exhibition at the RCA Graduate Show 2024 involved running a coffee shop. ‘To Play or Not, to Pay’ was a Happening where the audience can order and pay for their drinks by choosing to perform a playful and meaningless action, such as sporadically clapping at a stranger or offering to brush their hair. Over four days of opening, totalling 16 hours in duration, the artist and her assistant served over 300 cups of coffee to both eager and bewildered customers. The work is an interrogation of Allan Kaprow’s proposal of ‘play’ as the ‘currency’ of the ‘un-artist’. It questions who can afford to ‘play’ in an efficient capitalist society, to engage in meaningless acts of no immediate accomplishment.

Van holds a BSc in Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science and an MA in Contemporary Art Practice from the Royal College of Art. She worked at McKinsey and Company for five years, where she co-authored “The UK arts ecosystem: Seeing the big picture” – a report looking at the impact of the arts on the economy and wider society. She also worked for two years at the V&A Museum as a Project Manager, advising on their strategy and the design of new offerings that would broaden access for younger audiences.