Huong Dodinh, a majestic abstract painter has never been featured in a Pace gallery before. The artist recently joined Pace, one of the largest galleries in the world. Pace, which has premises in cities such as New York, London, Hong Kong, and Seoul, said the move was aimed at expanding the gallery’s presence in Europe.
Dodinh is based in Paris, where Pace has been rumored to be opening an art space for a long time. The pace is also currently based in Geneva. It’s unusual for an artist as obscure as Dodinh to make the leap into a mega-gallery.
Often, the artists who join Pace are figures with a stable market for their work or people whose status as art historians has been established. At Pace, Dodinh will be on a list that also includes Jeff Koons, Robert Rauschenberg, Julian Schnabel, Sam Gilliam, Linda Benglis, Beatrice Milhazes, and more.
Noting that Dodinh’s work has rarely been exhibited and is not known at all, Valentina Volchkova, Vice President of Pace in Geneva, said the artist’s new representation would give her the recognition she deserves.
Dodinh was born in 1945 in Sok Trang, Vietnam, and fled in 1953 with her family to France during the First Indochina War. When the future artist was at boarding school, she saw snow for the first time. And this event, in her opinion, aroused interest in art. In the 60s she attended an art school in Paris, where she remains to this day.
In memory of the snowfall she witnessed as a child, Dodinh paints discreet abstractions that are often depicted in subdued colors. In them, subtle lines bend and connect, gentle contrasts between close blue and purple tones are played out.
Last year, Dodinh had a two-person exhibition with Vietnamese-born artist Thu-Van Tran at the Musée Guimet in Paris. This became one of Dodinh’s greatest exhibitions to date. But the artist is only now getting his first solo museum exhibition this month.
The art world as a whole will get to know Dodinh’s art through a survey conducted in Venice at the Museo Correr, which opens on April 23, simultaneously with the Venice Biennale. CMS, an art consulting firm that has been working with Dodinh since 2018, is listed as the host of this show.
The Pace is mentioned in the description of the exhibition as one of the sponsors of the event, although it is not uncommon for galleries to fund museum research conducted around the city during the biennale.
Volchkova said that she had known about Huong Dodinh’s work for several years, but it wasn’t until last autumn that she saw it in person and fully realized its extraordinary power. “It was immediately clear that Dodin’s work would have an important place in the Pace agenda, especially at this vital time as we continue to expand our footprint in Europe.”
