Underdog Suite

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.