Danh Vo

Triple Canopy Benefit Auction, New York, 16 November 2016 (donated by the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery)

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Lioness is part of a series of seven works Danh Vō created on the occasion of the 2016 benefit auction for Triple Canopy, an arts magazine and nonprofit organization committed to fostering unconventional forms of thought and expression. For this body of work, Vō and Julie Ault, the 2016 benefit auction honoree, devised psychic messages for seven concealed individuals through a collaborative process that engaged members of each artist’s family. They worked with Elaine Ault, Julie’s mother and a practicing psychic medium, who attuned herself to the participants’ spiritual energies and interpreted the symbolic communications for Danh Vō’s father, Phung Vō, to render in script. The realization of these clairvoyant messages through multiple hands reflects Vō’s sustained interest in how meaning accrues within everyday objects as it is translated, transformed and re-embodied through collaboration.