Michael Nguyen – Clarity of Seeing, Fantasy of Interpretation

The Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried will show 34 photographs by Michael Nguyen in an exhibition. Martinsried is one of the two science suburbs of Munich, a district of the municipality of Planegg in the district of Munich in Bavaria. The exhibition, which takes place in the foyer of the Institute, “build a bridge between science and arts”. The exhibition shows works from 2020 – 2022. Michael Nguyen shows architectural objects, plays of light and shadow, reflections and architecture captured in various cities across Europe.

From Monday to Friday, the exhibition can also be visited in the evening and at night until midnight.

written by Prof. Dr. Phil. Rainer Funke | Professor of Design Theory, Potsdam:

Today, artistic photography moves quite differently than it did just a few decades ago as a visual force and communicative intervention amid an overflowing glut of images, whose production, management, and dissemination have long since gotten out of hand with conscientious control. After film, television, and computers, the smartphone in particular has catapulted us into a new image age. Often the challenge is to give the eyes an occasion to linger between their unsteady jumps from image to image. Michael Nguyen succeeds exquisitely in creating such an occasion with his photographs by creating clarity in seeing and challenge in interpretation through reduction and pointing.

Michael Nguyen is a flâneur. On foot, he seeks the encounter worth seeing in detail. His photographs show us buildings, streets, staircases, vehicles, and people of the kind that we might encounter at any time by chance in our everyday lives. The pictures confront us with single views of elements, focus their colors and forms in detail, and leave aside the manifold abundance of the surrounding. In this way, the images unfold a power of the particular: Something like this, but exactly how we haven’t seen things before.

Michael Nguyen – Clarity of Seeing, Fantasy of Interpretation

Nguyen likes to play with the seduction of the geometric, the regular, and the symmetrical. We find this everywhere as a testimony to the constructive power of a design oriented towards the ideal. Perfection is thus assumed, as is also the case with the impressively harmonized light and color gradients or surface textures. At the same time, the viewer is placed in an ideal position from which interest in what is depicted can unfold.

On the other hand, we are stimulated to let our imagination roam based on what is shown. For in the stylization we find numerous occasions to associate moods and longings. This is especially the case when people are seen in their appearance detached from movement. The contrast to the extraordinary view of their surroundings plays a special role. Whoever gets involved with the pictures of Michael Nguyen will in any case experience an enrichment: the special in the incidental.

Michael Nguyen

Most of the time, Michael Nguyen focuses on small, ordinary things but through a subjective lens. He gives them new perspectives, a new soul. “With my camera, I capture little things that we often don’t notice in everyday life. I also like to observe people and photograph them in everyday situations.”

Michael Nguyen is a “publicity shy” (Merkur – Daily newspaper Munich) photographic poet and artist who moves away from the mainstream, at the same time blurs genres. “Most of the photos could only be taken. Because Nguyen has a special eye for his surroundings and gives even the mundane a second view.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung).

In addition to his photo art, photography, and his artistic activities. Michael Nguyen is Editor-in-chief of the online magazine for photography and art: Degree

Michael Nguyen is a member of FREELANCE – the Professional Association of Photojournalists.