Danh Vo on Scams, Marriage, and Family as Art

In a 2007 interview with Adam Carr for Afterall, artist Danh Vo discusses his early works, including a solo exhibition at Galerie Klosterfelde in Berlin (2005) where he presented a forged application to the Danish Arts Council using Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset's signatures to fund a trip to Marfa, Texas. Vo explains his ongoing project 'Vo Rocasco Rasmussen' (2003-), in which he marries and divorces to add surnames, challenging notions of nation-state and identity. For his Copenhagen graduate show, he had his family produce works, including a letter in Vietnamese from his mother and a Christmas tree by his brother. He curated 'My Blue Genes' (11-18 March 2006) in his parents' apartment, featuring works by Henrik Olesen, Robert Gober, Elmgreen and Dragset, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and General Idea. Vo also discusses 'Go Mo Ni Ma Da' (2004), a project with Tobias Rehberger involving a replica of the boat his family used to escape Vietnam, and a recent acquisition of photographs from an American named Joe who was in Vietnam from 1962 to 1973, shown at Isabella Bortolozzi Gallery in Berlin.