Phong H. Bui (born September 17, 1964, in
Huế
Huế (formerly Thừa Thiên Huế province) is the southernmost coastal Municipalities of Vietnam, city in the North Central Coast region, the Central Vietnam, Central of Vietnam, approximately in the center of the country. It borders Quảng ...
, Vietnam) is an artist, writer, independent
curator
A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...
, and Co-Founder and Artistic Director of ''
The Brooklyn Rail
''The Brooklyn Rail'' is an American publication and platform for the arts, culture, humanities, and politics, based in Brooklyn, New York. It features in-depth critical essays, fiction, poetry, as well as interviews with artists, critics, and ...
,'' a free monthly arts, culture, and politics journal. Bui was named one of the "100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture" by ''
Brooklyn Magazine
''Brooklyn Magazine'' is an online news magazine, focusing on "New York’s most populous borough through the lens of culture, community, commerce, arts and leisure." The company was bought by Michael Bassik and the website was launched in Decemb ...
'' in 2014. In 2015, ''
The New York Observer
''The New York Observer'' was a weekly newspaper established in 1987. In 2016, it ceased print publication and became the online-only newspaper ''Observer''. The media site focuses on culture, real estate, media, politics and the entertainment ...
'' called him a "ringmaster" of the "Kings County art world." Bui was the recipient of the 2021
American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, Music of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...
Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts. He lives in
Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Greenpoint is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bordered on the southwest by Williamsburg at Bushwick Inlet Park and McCarren Park; on the southeast by the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway and East ...
.
Publisher, writer, and editor
In addition to fostering the creative energy behind ''
The Brooklyn Rail
''The Brooklyn Rail'' is an American publication and platform for the arts, culture, humanities, and politics, based in Brooklyn, New York. It features in-depth critical essays, fiction, poetry, as well as interviews with artists, critics, and ...
'', Bui publishes Rail Editions, a venture that features experimental poetry, fiction, artist interviews, and
art criticism
Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art. Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty. A goal of art criticism is the pursuit of a rational basis for art appreciation but it is quest ...
, and has published titles on artist
Ron Gorchov
Ron Gorchov (April 5, 1930 – August 18, 2020) was an American artist. He was known for his colorful, abstract paintings on curved canvases.
In the late 1960s, he began making oil-on-linen paintings on distinctive saddle-like stretchers, at onc ...
, art critic
Irving Sandler
Irving Sandler (July 22, 1925 – June 2, 2018) was an American art critic, art historian, and educator. He provided numerous first hand accounts of American art, beginning with abstract expressionism in the 1950s. He also managed the Tanager Gal ...
, poet
Luigi Ballerini, and a collection of poems by
Florbela Espanca
Florbela Espanca (; born , ) was a Portuguese poet. She is known for her passionate and feminist poetry. Fernando Pessoa later said she was his "twin soul".
Early life
Born Flor Bela d'Alma da Conceição on 8 December 1894 in Vila Viçosa, P ...
, the first collection of the
Portuguese modernist poet to appear in English.
Bui contributes essays, reviews, and interviews to the ''Brooklyn Rail'', and creates portraits of each month's featured interviewees. He has written articles for ''Matador Magazine'', ''
Art in America'', and ''Riot of Perfume'', among others,
as well as essays for exhibition catalogues and books on artists. In addition to his writing, he is the producer and host of the program ''Off The Rail'', hosted by
Clocktower Productions's ''Clocktower Radio'', where he interviews artists, art historians, and art writers.
In 2018, Bui launched the ''River Rail'', a biannual publication devoted to the environment, climate change, and the "urgent subject of nature: its beauty, abuse, and changing climate that is gravely affecting every aspect of the planet’s ecosystem, and our lives."
Curator
Bui has curated over 50 monographic and group shows since 2000, including the first anniversary commemoration in 2013 of
Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as Superstorm Sandy) was an extremely large and devastating tropical cyclone which ravaged the Caribbean and the coastal Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States in late ...
: ''Come Together: Surviving Sandy, Year 1,'' "a sprawling, encompassing, inspiring exhibition of works by some 300 artists," according to
Roberta Smith
Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position at the Times.
Education and early life
Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawre ...
of the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
.'' The show was ranked as New York's #1 exhibition in 2013 by
Jerry Saltz
Jerry Saltz (born February 19, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American art critic. Since 2006, he has been senior art critic and columnist for ''New York magazine, New York'' magazine. Formerly the senior art critic for ''The Village Voice'', ...
of ''New York Magazine.'' In 2013 he initiated the Rail Curatorial Projects which aims to curate exhibitions as social experiments. In 2014, Bui curated ''Bloodflames Revisited'' which featured the work of more than two dozen artists at
Paul Kasmin Gallery
The Kasmin Gallery, formerly known as the Paul Kasmin Gallery, is a New York City fine art gallery, founded in SoHo in 1989.
History
The gallery was founded by its namesake as the Paul Kasmin Gallery in 1989 and was initially housed at 74 Grand ...
and ''Spaced Out: Migration to the Interior'' at Red Bull Studios, featuring nearly 40 artists. In 2015, Bui organized a two-part exhibition entitled ''Intimacy in Discourse: Reasonable and Unreasonable Sized Paintings'' taking place at both
Mana Contemporary
Mana Contemporary is a cultural center in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States with affiliated centers in Chicago and Miami.
History and Founder
Opened in May 2011, the center was founded by moving company mogul Moishe Mana. Shai Baitel ...
and the SVA Chelsea Gallery. His most recent curatorial project was a two-part exhibition with Mana Contemporary in 2017, titled ''Occupy Mana: Artists Need To Create On the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity To Destroy'' & ''Friends In Solidarity, Year 1.''
This exhibit included over 60 artists addressing social and political issues, including human rights and equality, immigration, foreign relations, the environment, and climate change, and continued Bui's curatorial activation of
Peter Lamborn Wilson
Peter Lamborn Wilson (October 20, 1945 – May 22, 2022) was an American anarchist author and poet, primarily known for his concept of Temporary Autonomous Zones, short-lived spaces which elude formal structures of control. During the 1970s, Wils ...
's concept of the
Temporary Autonomous Zone
''T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone'' is a book by the anarchist writer and poet Hakim Bey (Peter Lamborn Wilson). It was published in 1991 by Autonomedia and in 2011 by Pacific Publishing Studio (). It is composed of three sections, "Chaos: ...
, "a space wherein the fluctuation of artistic energy establishes the flow of information, and in so doing aligns—however fleetingly—a great collective imagination. Here one finds the potential for awakening one’s perception and agency of self-discovery."
The show has since seen new realizations in two different spaces. Firstly in May 2019 as part of the
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
titled, ''Artists Need To Create On the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity To Destroy: Mare Nostrum'', an exhibition co-curated with art historian and independent curator Francesca Pietropaolo. Secondly the show has had its most revisitation at the
Colby College Museum of Art
The Colby College Museum of Art is an art museum on the campus of Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Founded in 1959 and now comprising five wings, nearly 8,000 works and more than 38,000 square feet of exhibition space, the Colby College Museu ...
in July 2019 titled, ''Occupy Colby: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to Destroy, Year 2''.
Bui served as curatorial advisor at
MoMA PS1
MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution at 2201 Jackson Avenue in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens in New York City, United States. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, th ...
from 2007 to 2010 where he organized monographic exhibitions of artists including Robert Bergman,
Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas (; ; December 24, 1922 – January 23, 2019) was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema". Mekas's work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals world ...
,
Joanna Pousette-Dart
Joanna Pousette-Dart (born 1947) is an American abstract art, abstract artist, based in New York City.Rose, Barbara"Joanna Pousette-Dart: with Barbara Rose,"''The Brooklyn Rail'', June 2019. Retrieved September 4, 2020.Johnson, Ken''The New York ...
,
Tony Fitzpatrick,
Harriet Korman, and
Jack Whitten
Jack Whitten (December 5, 1939 – January 20, 2018) was an American abstract painter and sculptor, who was part of the Black Abstractionism canon. According to the Museum of Modern Art, he "invented art-making techniques that were the first of ...
, and numerous group exhibitions including ''Irrational Profusion: Nicole Cherubini, Marc Leuthold, Joyce Robins, Peter Schlesinger'' and ''Orpheus Selection: Nicola Lopez & Lisa Sigal.'' Bui has curated other exhibitions at various galleries including recent work by Ron Gorchov at Cheim & Read as well as ''Exquisite Fucking Boredom,'' an exhibition of
Polaroid images by artist and writer Emma Bee Bernstein at Microscope Gallery.
Artist
A graduate of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA,
Bui continued his postgraduate studies at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture
and studied independently with
Nicolas Carone
Nicolas Carone (June 4, 1917 – July 15, 2010) belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists. Their artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized internationally, including in London and Paris. New ...
.
Bui is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work includes painting, sculpture, and site-specific installation.
Since 2012 he has been working on his on-going social sculpture/environment, which attempts to realize "art as social activity" and to reinforce the notion that "the process of art making is the art."
In 2006, Bui won the Award in Art from the
American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, Music of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...
, and the Eric Isenbeurger Annual Prize for Installation from the
National Academy
A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, and serves as a public policy advisors, research ...
Museum. His work has been included in group exhibitions at Pierogi, the
Brooklyn Museum of Art
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...
, and the
North Dakota Museum of Art
The North Dakota Museum of Art (NDMOA) is the official art museum of the American state of North Dakota. Located on the campus of the University of North Dakota, in Grand Forks, North Dakota, the museum is a private not-for-profit institution. ...
. Bui has lectured at
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 ...
,
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
,
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly known as Cooper Union, is a private college on Cooper Square in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-s ...
,
Bard College
Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains within the Hudson River Historic District ...
, and taught at
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
,
Rhode Island School of Design
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...
,
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
, and the
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design.
History
This school was started by Silas ...
where he is currently giving graduate seminars in MFA Writing and Criticism and MFA Photography, Video, and Related Media.
Recognition
Bui has won an Arcadia Traveling Fellowship, a Hohenberg Traveling Fellowship, and a
Pollock-Krasner Foundation
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing funding to visual artists internationally to further their artistic practices. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expr ...
Fellowship, and in 2014 was the keynote speaker of The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and was the Visionary Honoree at Art in General's Annual Benefit. In 2017, Bui was awarded the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation Prize in Fine Arts Journalism. In 2019, the Lunder Institute named Bui a 2019 Lunder Institute Fellow. In July 2019, Bui received the Jetté Award for Leadership in the Arts 2019 from Colby College as well as curating ''Occupy Colby: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to Destroy, Year 2'' at Colby Museum of Art.
In 2017, Bui was a member of the jury that selected
Reem Fadda for the
Menil Collection
The Menil Collection, located in Houston, Texas, refers either to a museum that houses the art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself of paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs a ...
's Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement.
[Alex Greenberger (23 May 2017)]
Menil Collection’s Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement Goes to Reem Fadda
�''ARTnews
''ARTnews'' is an American art magazine, based in New York City. It covers visual arts from ancient to contemporary times. It is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. ''ARTnews'' has a readership of 180,000 in 124 co ...
''.
References
External links
Phong Bui's Official WebsiteIn Conversation: Phong Bui with Constance Lewallen SFAQPhong Bui with Maury Colton UMVAThe Brooklyn Rail's Official WebsiteThe Miami RailThe Third Rail
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bui, Phong
1964 births
Living people
American publishers (people)
American art curators
People from Huế
University of the Arts (Philadelphia) alumni
American artists of Vietnamese descent
American writers of Vietnamese descent
Vietnamese emigrants to the United States