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until 29.11. | #4764ARTatBerlin | Galerie kajetan Berlin shows from Saturday, 13. September 2025 (Opening: 12.09.) the exhibition “Silky Way” by the artist Minh Dung Vu.
The kajetan gallery is delighted to present Silky Way, the first solo exhibition by Munich-based artist Minh Dung Vu (born 1995). In addition to two smaller works on paper, the exhibition features new large-format textile works in which Vu sews shiny silk characterised by gentle colour gradients onto untreated matt linen fabric, thus connecting it to the image carrier. In doing so, the artist shifts the boundaries between painting, collage and object and expands the classical understanding of the image to include a consistently material-based dimension. His works revolve around questions of cultural belonging, identity and memory and are characterised by a subtle yet precisely controlled materiality and a strong spatial presence.
Exhibition view Silky Way, Minh Dung Vu, Ohne Titel, 2023, Sewn linen
and fabric, 41 x 51 cm, Courtesy of Galerie Kajetan, Photo: Gunter Lepkowski
Vu’s artistic process begins with the selection and processing of individual lengths of fabric, whose inherent behaviour he consciously incorporates into the creative process. The fabric reacts to tension, seams and folds, absorbing or rejecting colour, changing its structure and transparency. Depending on their thickness and type of weave, the materials behave differently – properties that the artist deliberately exploits. Despite the two-dimensional layout, the interplay of material thickness, light transmission and surface structure creates multi-layered light and shadow effects that change with the positioning in the room.
Space thus plays a central role in the artist’s still young oeuvre. Vu’s works are not intended as isolated objects, but enter into a reciprocal relationship with their surroundings. Architecture, lighting and viewer movement alter their effect, while at the same time the works open up new and surprising interpretations of the space.
Exhibition view Silky Way, Minh Dung Vu, XVIII, 2024, Acrylic, sewn silk
and canvas, 240 x 825 cm, Pentaptych, Courtesy of Galerie Kajetan, Photo: Gunter Lepkowski
With his choice of materials – silk, deeply rooted in Vietnamese culture and craftsmanship, and linen, firmly anchored in Western painting history – and his treatment of them through stretching, folding, dyeing, draping, separating and merging, and the final installation in the space, the artist’s works reflect the flexibility of identity and the connection between two cultural reference systems.
Thus, Vu, who was born in Vietnam, incorporates biographical and cultural experiences into his work without explicitly illustrating them. Traditional textile and colour codes, visual references to traditional musical forms such as chầu văn and ca trù, and personal fragments of memory flow together in hybrid, abstract forms. In this way, the fabric, in its structurally articulated composition, becomes a vehicle for history, rupture and appropriation – a material language in which individual and collective narratives are inscribed.
Exhibition view Silky Way, Minh Dung Vu, Courtesy of Galerie Kajetan, Photo: Gunter Lepkowski
For the first time, Vu also shows a work in Silky Way that – apart from the wooden frame – consists entirely of chiffon, a material traditionally made from silk, which here completely replaces the use of linen. With its multi-layered and semi-transparent nature, this work now completely dissolves the boundaries between painting, collage and object, proving to be an installation
installation that activates the space and conveys moments of transition and threshold. The artist says of his choice of material:
“What I particularly appreciate about chiffon is its semi-transparent quality: it does not completely cover, but allows light and the shapes behind it to shine through. This allows the viewer to perceive both the surface of the chiffon and the structure of the frame, creating a double visual experience. For me, chiffon has a lightness about it and is easy to work with – adding, removing, folding, layering, dyeing or painting – without destroying the structure of the frame. It is like a thin skin that both covers and reveals the frame. At this moment, the frame is no longer just a technical element supporting the work, but becomes part of the visual language of the artwork.”
Exhibition view Silky Way, Minh Dung Vu, Courtesy of Galerie Kajetan, Photo: Gunter Lepkowski
While the artist formally draws on Minimal Art and reveals references to both conceptual textile art and process art, he develops his own clearly contoured vocabulary of forms that effectively thrives on material and formal tension. The precisely placed, reduced gestures unfold a narrative character just as much as the materials themselves.
Eliza Grabarek M.A.
Exhibition view Silky Way, Minh Dung Vu, Courtesy of Galerie Kajetan, Photo: Gunter Lepkowski
Minh Dung Vu (born in Vietnam in 1995) lives and works in Munich. After completing his first degree in graphic design at the Vietnam University of Fine Arts (2013–2014), he continued his education in Germany – first at the HBK Essen (painting/graphic design, 2015–2019), then at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig under Prof. Michael Riedel (2019–2022). He then became a master student under Prof. Nikolas Gambaroff at the Mainz Academy of Fine Arts (2022–2023).
His work has received numerous awards, including a recognition award as part of the STRABAG Art Award International 2020, the Essen Sponsorship Award and the Germany Scholarship in 2018. In 2024, he was nominated for the Ketterer Kunst Masterclass.
Solo exhibitions have taken him to the Gate Gate Gallery in Hanoi (Around the White Road, 2024), the gallery of the Mainz Academy of Fine Arts (From East to West, 2023) and the STRABAG Kunstforum in Vienna (Time on Flow, 2021), among others. He has shown his work in group exhibitions at Galerie Biesenbach, Cologne (Trialogue: Aspects of Abstraction, 2023), Galerie Heike Strelow in Frankfurt (Painting after Painting, 2023) and at the Positions Berlin Art Fair 2022. His works are in private and public collections, including the STRABAG Kunstforum Vienna, and have been published in specialist media such as Contemporary Art Issue.
Opening: Friday, 12. September 2025, 6 – 9 pm.
Exhibition dates: Saturday, 13. September – Saturday, 29. November 2025
Special opening hours (Berlin Art Week): Saturday & Sunday, 13.–14. September 2025, 11am. – 6 pm.
Gallery walk CHARLOTTENWALK: Saturday, 29. November 2025, 12–18 hrs
To the gallery
Title image caption: Minh Dung Vu, Courtesy of Galerie Kajetan.
Exhibition Minh Dung Vu – Galerie kajetan Berlin | Zeitgenössische Kunst – Contemporary Art – Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
