DIGITAL WHIRLPOOL

Sour Sun by Minh Ngoc Nguyen
Heavy Books2021Selected by TANK

Minh Ngoc Nguyen’s first artist book Sour Sun is a feast for the eyes. The 96-page hardback takes the reader on a journey of consumerism through Western tropes and Southeast Asian culture with a post-internet aesthetic. The majority of the images could be described as contemporary still lifes, meticulously composed of everyday objects but arranged in a way that oozes the uncanny. Moths float in a pool of clear liquid next to a knocked over drinks can; two arms wrestle, their elbows placed on bubble wrap and hands clasped around a bunch of grapes. Scale is exaggerated and colour inverted, the images are both fat and flat, and objects of humdrum domesticity are captured with the shininess of commercial photography.