Join CAMH members and friends for a private first look at the artist’s first museum solo exhibition before the public opening reception at 7PM.

Diane Severin Nguyen: IF REVOLUTION IS A SICKNESS features a recent video installation, photographs, a site-specific architectural intervention, and the artist’s first public art commission in the form of billboards located at key sites throughout Houston. The exhibition is built around the titular video, IF REVOLUTION IS A SICKNESS, which is set in Warsaw, Poland and loosely follows the character of an orphaned Vietnamese child who grows up to be absorbed into a South Korean pop-inspired dance group. Anchored in the visual and political context of the Vietnamese community of Poland, Nguyen’s work reckons with the process of finding shared symbols and naming oneself from within another’s regime, while also positioning youth culture as a critical and crucial site of revolutionary power.

Ticket Information and Availability

RSVPs are required as this event is open to CAMH members or by special invitation only. Not yet a member? Join today!

About the Artist

Diane Severin Nguyen (b. 1990, Carson, California) is an artist who uses photography and time-based media. Nguyen earned an MFA from Bard College in 2020 and a BA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2013. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Between Two Solitudes, Stereo, Warsaw; Tyrant Star (online exhibition), Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Reoccurring Afterlife, Empty Gallery, Hong Kong; and Flesh Before Body, Bad Reputation, Los Angeles; all 2019. Recent group exhibitions include Made in L.A. 2020: a version, Hammer Museum and The Huntington, Los Angeles, 2020–2021; and Bodies of Water: 13th Shanghai Biennale, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China, 2021.

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Image caption: Diane Severin Nguyen, IF REVOLUTION IS A SICKNESS (video still), 2021. 4K video with sound. 18:53 minutes. Courtesy the artist and Bureau, New York.