Anh Duong

June 29 - September 16, 2000

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Anh Duong
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Anh Duong was born in Bordeaux, France to a Vietnamese father and Spanish mother. She studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and danced with the Franchetti Academy of Classical Dance. In 1988 she moved to New York City where she began painting. In 1991 Sperone Westwater Gallery featured Duong's first painting exhibition in New York. Her earliest self portrait titled "Summer in Montauk" (1988) was included in a 1997 show at the PMMK Museum of Modern Art in Ostend, Belgium. Two years later (1999), the Galerie Jerome de Noirmont presented her first solo exhibition of self-portraits with more than 65 works on display. Duong has since become a recognized painter in New York City. Forgetting the subject to focus on the technical painting itself, she focuses on the portrait, and mostly the self-portrait that she has painted on a daily basis as a diary. "(...) her paintings expose an unexpected, unglamorous, intimate relationship with her body (...) Duong's paintings should be viewed as contributions to adifferent genre they belong alongside the work of women such as Dora Maar, Anais Nin, and Frida Kahlo, artists who compellingly exposed interior worlds whose beauty, intelligence, and character inspired creativity, both in themselves and in others" (artnet Magazine, 2004).

Duong has also worked on a number of portraits commissioned by collectors such as Bruno Bischofberger, Princess Maria Theresia Alexandra of Thurn and Taxis (daughter of Gloria von Thurn und Taxis), and Simon de Pury. Duong's latest portrait has been a sculpture standing nine feet tall in stainless steel of Diane von Furstenberg commissioned by Barry Diller for the figurehead of his boat.

Earlier in life, and before becoming a painter and sculptor, Duong was discovered by David Seidner and was invited by him to be featured in a YSL campaign for Vogue. From that moment on, she started working for numerous designers, including Donna Karan and John Galliano, as well as posing for Christian Lacroix, Herb Ritts, Deborah Turbeville, Steven Meisel, Mario Testino, and Peter Lindbergh. Her career also includes appearances in films such as The Mambo Kings, I Shot Andy Warhol, and High Art which was presented in Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals. Duong also acted in two films by French director Laetitia Masson, For Sale and Love Me which was screened in the Berlin Film Festival.