Contrapuntals: New Work by Intel Lastierre and Vy Ngo

ICOSA Collective opens Contrapuntals on Friday, September 25, a new exhibition featuring work by Intel Lastierre and Vy Ngo. The show runs through October 24, with an opening reception that night from 7 to 10 PM and an artist talk on October 15 from 6 to 8 PM.

The title comes from music, where two or more independent melodic lines unfold at the same time, each keeping its own integrity. That's the structure the show uses to frame the conversation between Lastierre and Ngo, who both approach history, power, and identity from different angles. Lastierre's paintings work with fluid, flesh-like forms that hover between body and landscape, looking at colonialism as an ongoing structure with a focus on the Philippines and the United States. Ngo's work comes from a journey through central Vietnam and draws on fragments of architecture, historical imagery, and found materials to consider the French doctrine of mission civilisatrice and how successive occupations have shaped the country's landscape and cultural identity.

Together they treat empire not as a completed historical episode but as a living set of structures, stories, and material conditions. Because they're coming at it from different perspectives—one through the Philippines and the U.S., the other through Vietnam—the show lets their separate lines run alongside each other rather than blending them into one. It's a good way to see how two different histories can speak to the same underlying theme.

Admission is free. You can catch the opening reception on September 25 from 7 to 10 PM, and if you want to hear from the artists themselves, the talk is on October 15 from 6 to 8 PM. The show stays up through October 24 at ICOSA Collective, 916 Springdale Rd. Bldg 2, #102, Austin, TX 78702.