Mit LIZA NGUYEN stellen wir nach IRA VINOKUROVA eine zweite fotografische Position aus der ehemaligen Klasse von Thomas Ruff an der Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf vor. LIZA NGUYEN wurde in Frankreich geboren. Sie pendelt zwischen Paris und dem Rheinland hin und her, wo sie an der Düsseldorfer Kunstakademie bei Thomas Ruff studierte. Sie besitzt sowohl einen Master Titel der Sorbonne als auch der Ècole Louis Lumière. Ihr fotografisches Werk dreht sich um die Themen Repräsentation, Erinnerung und Ästhetik. Dabei beschäftigt sie sich mit den Fragen: Wie kann Vergangenes angemessen dargestellt werden? Wie kann die Erinnerung in die Gegenwart integriert werden? Wie können Ästhetik und Ethik einander nahe gebracht werden? LIZA NGUYEN wurde bereits in zahlreichen Ausstellungen sowohl in Europa als auch in Asien und Amerika vorgestellt. Ihr Buchprojekt "Mon Père / My Father" hat in Frankreich schon mehrere Preise erhalten, u.a. "La bourse du Talent". Es wird in Deutschland von Schaden.com in Köln herausgegeben.* Die Serie "Souvenirs of Vietnam" gewann vor kurzem den "Prix Fnac de la Photographie" sowie den großen Preis der "International Biennal of Art of Lulea" in Schweden. ________ english __________ The exhibition of LIZA NGUYEN following the show of IRA VINOKUROVA is the second in a series of three presenting photographic positions out of the former class of Thomas Ruff at the Fine Arts Academy of Düsseldorf. Liza Nguyen was born in France. She splits her time between Paris and Düsseldorf where she studied with Thomas Ruff at the Fine Arts Academy. She has a Master of Arts from the Sorbonne and a second Master degree in photography from the national school Louis Lumière. Her work explores representation, memory and aesthetics: how to represent the past, how memory is built in the present and how to create the link between aesthetics and ethics. Liza Nguyen has exhibited widely in Europe, Asia and America. Her bookwork "My Father” received several awards in France, including "La bourse du Talent” and is published in Germany with Schaden.com .* "Souvenirs of Vietnam” recently won the "Prix Fnac de la Photographie” and the grand prize of the "International Biennal of Art of Lulea” in Sweden. Publication * "My Father" 60 color pages, 22 x 20cm, hard cover, english. Limited edition with 25 (+5AP) c-prints signed and numbered. Publisher and distribution: SCHADEN.com Burgmauer 10 | 50667 Cologne, Germany | www.schaden.com | books@schaden.com ISBN 3-932187-55-5 September 2006 around 20 € INTRODUCTION TEXT to the book… "My father", Liza Nguyen, Paris, 2003 Losing one's father. How to represent my father's existence? The memory of my father prompted me to constitute a book of photographic and written traces divided in 3 series. A series of places, decoration of his life : it is shown in chronological order. The places where he lived are alternated with the doctor office where he worked and hospitals where he remained. These photographs, realised during the night, reveal a symbolic and commemorative light of the presence of my father in these places. A series of objects of everyday life : it associates his personal objects, his clothes, his shroud, some family albums and my own memories. The objects are the relay of memory, they incarnate the link between the past, the present and the one who is gone. A series of portraits of witnesses : it presents these eyes which saw, laid out with their written memories. The idea extracted from their testimonies refers to the general idea of a father. A series of portraits of my family supplements the images from the filmed interviews. My position concerns a certain aesthetical and ethical picture, the one of metonymy, where my father's traces evoke and symbolize his whole being. Is this memory fixed or does the quest continue?