Danh Vo: Broom and Sponge Set

Broom and Sponge Set constitutes of a set of sponges and two Thai brooms (one large and one small).

Assembled by artist Danh Vo, and in a sense authored by him, these brooms and sponges are not so much art objects as aesthetically appealing tools. Accompanying two Thai brooms are nine sponges packed in a pragmatic transparent, plastic box printed with a motif of The Martyrdom of Jean Charles Cornay c. 1837. The delicate painting depicts the gruesome beheading and dismemberment of Cornay, a French missionary to Vietnam who inspired a generation to pursue his work including Jean-Théophane Vénard who features in a number of Vo’s works. As Vietnamese Catholics, Vo’s family inherited the colonial program of these zealous missionaries. Vo has used this painting in a number of other non-art contexts, including printed on baby onesies. It is as if he is taking the Western penchant for appropriating unthreatening Asian visual culture, and asked, “If you like that image, why not enjoy this one, which points to the actual violence inherent to cultural expansion and exchange?” With Vo’s pan-asian sourcing, the brooms and sponges might be an allegory for the cleansing of the past and an embrace of the new. However, as Vo enjoys allowing things to exist in parallel without overthinking them, it is more likely that the sponges are there to wipe the grime from our bathtubs, and the brooms to sweep the remains of our day.

About Danh Vō

Danh Vō was born in Bà Rja, Vietnam, 1975. Vō’s family fled the country in a homemade boat when Vo was four years old, the vessel was rescued at sea by a Danish freighter. Grew up in Denmark, studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (1998-2002) in Copenhagen and the Städelschule (2002-2005) in Frankfurt, Danh Vō currently lives in Berlin and Mexico City. His artistic practices often address issues relating to identity and belonging, authority, ownership, the role of personal relationships and other conditions that define human existence in contemporary time.

Photo by Nick Ash

Image and Text: the shop, ©Authors, the shop, 2019

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