True Gold #24

2016
Sprayed oil on cotton
210 x 140 cm

Sourcing images from mass media and archives, Le Quy Tong’s True Gold series transcends time and dissolves borders in a global study of political discord. Chronologically, True Gold begins with the triumphant 1945 August Revolution in Vietnam and ends with a dissident protestor at the 2014 Hong Kong Umbrella Revolution. The intermediate images reflect a widening gyre of unrest and revolutionary sentiment spanning the last seventy years, including photographs from the 1968 international anti-war protests and Total Freedom / anti-globalisation protest at the 2007 G8 summit. They appear faded, emphasising this passing through time and our removal from the original experience. Tong’s manipulations of each image create heavy distortions and eschew any clear reading of events. What we are left with is our own interpretation. (Maria Sowter)