Group exhibition «Đi vắng» («Away»)

   Four abstract artists from four different generations ask one question: when form and meaning dissolve out of a painting, do they really vanish, or do they stay on in some invisible form? The show runs for two and a half months in southern Ho Chi Minh City and admits visitors by appointment only, which means you get the room almost to yourself.

   «Đi vắng» means being elsewhere for a while, or stepping away while leaving traces of your presence behind. The four names are Lập Phương, Trần Nữ YênKhê, Trần Văn Thảo and Ca Lê Thắng, each with a distinct approach to abstraction: solid and undefined shapes sit side by side, then dissolve into fluid currents of colour.

   Who you will be looking at:

• — Lập Phương (b. 1989) graduated in monumental sculpture from the Hanoi University of Architecture; her Wings – Arcs – Triangles – Infinity series work with thin sheet metal and symmetrical structures.
• — Trần Nữ YênKhê is based in Paris and studied at École Camondo. Her Vietnamese lacquer sculpture Borderline (2018) was acquired by the Musée Guimet in 2019 — the first contemporary work from Southeast Asia to enter the French National Collections. She is also the lead actress of The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), Cyclo (1995) and The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000), and was art director and costume designer on The Taste of Things (2023) by Trần Anh Hùng.
• — Trần Văn Thảo (b. 1961, Saigon) graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts in 1986 and was a prominent member of the Group of 10; in 2001 he received the Asian Cultural Council's Starr Foundation Fellowship and spent four months in residence in New York.
• — Ca Lê Thắng (b. 1949) taught at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts, served as permanent deputy general secretary of the city's Fine Arts Association from 1988 to 2000, and co-founded the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Journal (1991–1996). His work is held by the Vietnam Museum of Fine Arts, the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts and the Quang San Art Museum.

   The show will reward anyone already at home with abstraction, and it is also a clean way to understand why Vietnamese abstract painting is tied so closely to the years after Đổi Mới: two of these four artists belonged to the Group of 10 that made abstraction a legitimate genre here in the first place.

   One practical point: the space opens by advance appointment only, so you need to message the gallery and pick a slot before you set out. Wiking Salon is on Nguyễn Hữu Thọ street in Nhà Bè, well south of the centre, so allow extra travel time.

   Book a slot and decide for yourself what stays behind once the shapes have gone.