In Gendering, several works feature the artist’s alternate, feminine persona Long Long. The representations in accoutrements of divinity bring into sharp focus the West’s purposeful gendering of race, where Asians in American culture have historically been feminized and emasculated. Much of the artist’s work seeks to disrupt the gender binary construction, and in life Nguyen uses the preferred pronoun “xe” (pronounce seh), the Vietnamese word for “vehicle.”
Excerpt from “Beyond Binary: Thinh Nguyen,” in artillery by Betty Ann Brown:
“Nguyen was born in 1984 in a small village in central Vietnam. The child was quite ill and his frightened mother went to a fortune teller for help. The psychic said that they needed to “cheat Death” by disguising the child as a female. For his first nine years, Nguyen wore dresses and learned to behave as a girl. Eventually, Death moved on and the family could treat Nguyen as a boy. Soon thereafter, the family immigrated to the United States and the male/female/male child was forced to change national identity as well.
“Nguyen, ‘Long Long emerged out of the realization that Western art history is not my history, my assigned gender is not my identity, and my identity is not a product of my cultural values. Long Long is my performance in power, in hope of altering the power relations and finding the threads that connect us all.’” Please read full article here: https://www.artillerymag.com/the-art-of-thinh-nguyen/.
Excerpt from “Beyond Binary: Thinh Nguyen,” in artillery by Betty Ann Brown:
“Nguyen was born in 1984 in a small village in central Vietnam. The child was quite ill and his frightened mother went to a fortune teller for help. The psychic said that they needed to “cheat Death” by disguising the child as a female. For his first nine years, Nguyen wore dresses and learned to behave as a girl. Eventually, Death moved on and the family could treat Nguyen as a boy. Soon thereafter, the family immigrated to the United States and the male/female/male child was forced to change national identity as well.
“Nguyen, ‘Long Long emerged out of the realization that Western art history is not my history, my assigned gender is not my identity, and my identity is not a product of my cultural values. Long Long is my performance in power, in hope of altering the power relations and finding the threads that connect us all.’” Please read full article here: https://www.artillerymag.com/the-art-of-thinh-nguyen/.