Burkhard Meltzer

Cat Tuong Nguyen has over the past ten years gained significant recognition for a highly individual, intelligent and poetic work. Photographs, collages, painted-over pictures from magazines form together a cosmos of images of great visual and substantial power. Nguyen confronts the viewer with strange, humourous and mysterious things and investigates our everyday reality. He takes-up political and social aspects and events, and he investigates the emotional world of the individual searching for its way in everyday reality. Nguyen's images, playful as they seem to be in some cases, are based on fundamental experiences, such as emigration, integration in a new world and the outsider's view of an alien culture and society. "Underdog Suite" is the first large book on Nguyen's art. It comprises nearly the complete oeuvre of this extraordinary young artist, his own selection of images arranged in an unconventional, highly original manner. It is not a mere monographic overview, it is rather the artist's self-portrait in the shape of a book. Two essays investigate Nguyen's ideas, concepts and artistic method. This title includes text in English and German.