Diane Severin Nguyen: IF REVOLUTION IS A SICKNESS?

An exhibition catalog centering on a film by artist Diane Severin Nguyen. This catalog, published on the occasion of the exhibition If Revolution is a Sickness, presents the first monographic book on work by artist Diane Severin Nguyen, which considers how songs and shared histories are woven together across different times and places.The book centers on a new film by Nguyen that is set in Warsaw, Poland, and it loosely follows the character of an orphaned Vietnamese child who grows up to join a South Korean pop-inspired dance group.Popular within a subculture of Polish youth, the genre of K-pop is used by Nguyen as a vernacular structure as she traces a relationship between Eastern Europe and Asia that has roots in Cold War allegiances. In addition to extensive imagery from the film and behind-the-scenes footage, the book also features essays by Cat Zhang on K-pop’s online communities and by Nathanäel on music, history, and geography; a pair of reflections on the film by curators Myri