Novelist Ocean Vuong’s photography to be shown alongside Boona,Tillmans and others
In Ocean Vuong’s latest novel, “the day flies by like a photograph taken by the wind” as a character waits to fall asleep. In all of his literary works, he carries “palm-sized” prints of characters with “blurry/photo-like” fingers, puts them in his shirt pockets, and visits graves containing photographs of the dead.
This visual sensibility began in Vuong’s teenage years; spent taking photos of his friends at punk shows and skate parks. In 2009, she borrowed a friend’s camera to photograph her mother at the beauty salon, capturing the tenderness of daily labor on the pink walls decorated with hand paintings.
Known for her literary achievements, fans of Vuong’s writing span both pop and publishing, from Madonna to Björk, Max Porter to Ben Lerner. His many awards include the MacArthur “genius” award, which he received after the publication of his first novel. We Are Simply Magnificent in the WorldA poetic meditation on legacy, loss, truth and time.
Excitingly, the poet and novelist will leave the page in December to show his photographs in Australia for the first time as part of the National Gallery of Victoria’s fourth Triennial.
Vuong’s photographic work extends his literary preoccupations. “I think time is one of the most controversial elements of human life,” he tells me. “Whose time are we on? Whose money determines time? We use it as a kind of social fact. It’s 8:15 o’clock or 1 o’clock – what have you. But yet when we feel time, it exists in our bodies in a different way.”
He continued to take photographs during his rise to literary fame, but only in 2022, when a shoot with Nan Goldin turned into an extensive three-hour conversation, did he admit to being a photographer himself. Goldin encouraged him to share his work. “I still use that leave,” he admits.
At the Triennial, art will serve as both barometer and provocation; More than 90 artists from 35 countries will exhibit works that promise to tackle the complexity of our time. Artists address ongoing environmental collapse; oversaturation of artificial intelligence; complexity of cultural heritage. Visitors will be greeted by Angelina Karadada Boona’s iconic Wandjina, towering over the gallery’s waterfall entrance, and witness an installation of new work by Wolfgang Tillmans.
Some of the most interesting works also reveal the thin membrane between art and writing. Jenny Holzer’s kinetic sculpture, with an apt title unfortunatelycontains a sickening mix of conspiracy posts and presidential tweets; Mural by Christine Sun Kim States of Mind Translates American Sign Language into graphic form; and Shilpa Gupta Words Come From Ears It invites viewers to create meaning by filling the cover panel of the train station with fragmented texts. Gupta returns to the Triennale, last exhibiting with Zanele Muholi in 2017; will return with a newly commissioned three-metre self-portrait of the Virgin Mary, which itself marks the transition from photography to sculpture.
Vuong’s photographs also follow the lines of iteration and revision; he sees time as a collaborator and sees his work as a way to present “things that seep through the imaginary boundaries we’ve created over the years.”
The triennial will feature a selection of Vuong’s photographs from 2009, as well as new works made in the Connecticut River Valley. “New England is mostly known in the American imagination as bigots, Thanksgiving, apple pie, prep school,” he says. “But the majority are still populated by immigrants who live and work there. I never saw that in the American dream.”
Many of these new quiet, careful portraits show his younger brother Nicky holding his mother’s vase, standing in a field, or gazing up at the New England sky. In a move taken directly from his own autofiction, Vuong occasionally appears both behind and in front of the camera: in one particularly startling image, both brothers are seen side by side holding an American Flag.
Has his relationship with the camera changed after twenty years of filming? “For some reason I react to the world and say yes to it.” Vuong says.
“I say yes, yes, yes. The shutter clicks and says yes – yes.” He admits he worries that this feeling will “erode.” This always goes away when you do public work. But I’m trying to endure it as much as I can.”
The 2026 NGV Triennial will run from December 13 to April 11.
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