FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Humanitarians Not Heroes: (Five-Alive)
a project by Trong G. Nguyen

January 6 - February 2, 2006

Tenri Cultural Institute is pleased to present Humanitarians Not Heroes (Five-Alive), an installation by Trong G. Nguyen. Originally conceived as a coy, wide-reaching project that spread beyond the confines of gallery walls, HNH works have been sold at boutiques and stores in New York City, as well as exhibited at museums and galleries.

Nguyen’s “artist-as-company” project was initiated in 2002. Established under the umbrella of a legitimate business, HNH markets one type of product a year intended for wide consumption and distribution. The project occupies traditional and novel retail and exhibition spaces to sell and disseminate concepts that intersect art, fashion, design, and socio-politics. Examining the valuation of objects whose complex functions follow simple form, HNH's mission operates at the perimeters where art and capitalism converge.

The objects themselves are commonplace, everyday finds, but usually with a twist. Such goods include the 2005 product made in collaboration with Detroit collective Time Stereo called Sound Capsule, a Rip Van Winkle-inspired music cd with a stamped “listening date” indicating when each disc could actually be enjoyed by its purchaser. Like a time capsule, the earliest listening date is not for another seven years. HNH started with the 2002 Time-span T-shirts that mark solely birth and death dates of notable artists and individuals, followed by the 2003 project Dubya Says, a set of 36 fortune cookies each containing a different George W. Bush quotation, including such gems as "Africa is a nation that suffers from great disease" and "I understand small business growth. I was one." In 2004, the company issued Identification Cards that took issue with the Patriot Act and the tainted elections, making an analogy to an “illegitimate” presidency. The cards contained images of registrants, complete with their authorized signatures forged by an HNH “official.”

The last HNH exhibition (shäp) at the Lab Gallery saw retail and gallery space merge into one, a boutique filled with current and “vintage” HNH products, including an apocalyptic flip book 200-Year Calendar (1986), a Last Supper Dining Set (1999), and Minimalist Graffiti Kit (1993). The latter are plays on the fashion industry’s penchant for self-reference. The Tenri exhibition will see the launch of the 2006 Cardboard Bookshelf, plus more vintage objects, including a Magic Square Rubik’s Cube (1976) and a Leaves of Grass Pillow (1980), made in collaboration with artist Catarina Leitão recognizing the 125th anniversary of the publication of Walt Whitman’s “American" classic. Each individual pillow contains a poem from Leaves of Grass inserted with the stuffing.

Humanitarians Not Heroes (Five-Alive) is organized by Thalia Vrachopoulos, Tenri Exhibitions Director.

Trong G. Nguyen is an artist and independent curator in New York City. He has organized a number of exhibitions in the United States while simultaneously continuing to exhibit his own projects. Recent solo and group shows include Sonic Godiva (Artists Space, New York 2005), Float (Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City 2005), Messages from Guantánamo (Frisbee Fair, Miami 2005), and the upcoming Havana Biennial in March.

Exhibition is FREE and open to the public. Tenri hours are Monday-Thursday, 12-6pm, and Saturday, 12-5pm.
Closest Subway take the L to Sixth Avenue or F or V train to 14th Street.
For more information or images, please contact trongish@gmail.com