It's tricky to put together a coherent group show. The curator has not only the challenge of finding uniformly good artwork, but also of conceiving a thematic narrative to bind that work together.

And when a group exhibition is organized primarily around work by artists from an "identity" group — African-Americans, GLBT artists, or, women artists from Vietnam, as in the case of the Weisman Art Museum's new "Changing Identity" exhibition — the difficulties of curating such a show well are compounded exponentially.

The attractions of such identity-based group shows are immediately obvious: There's an easily discernible audience, a built-in marketing hook, and it's an easy way for galleries to exhibit work by emerging artists they probably wouldn't be able to show individually.

But these sorts of exhibitions are inherently fraught with curatorial problems, too — foremost among them, the ever-present risk of reducing an individual artist's work to mere ethnic novelty. The fact that Nora Taylor, the curator of "Changing Identity: Recent Works by Women Artists from Vietnam," is able to pull off the task cleanly is a feat worth applauding.

This traveling exhibition of painting, installation, photography, video and performance — on loan from International Arts & Artists — opens Sunday (Feb. 1) at the Weisman.

"Changing Identity" features new(ish) work, in a variety of media and styles, by female artists from Vietnam, a subset of professional contemporary artists which, according to the curator, has been largely ignored on the global art scene, at the same time that their male counterparts working in Vietnam have begun to attract notice.

Some pieces in the show are especially compelling: the evocative landscape photographs by An-My Le, the intensely personal shots by Phuong M. Do; the textured, vividly patterned works on paper of Dinh Thi Tham Poong, and the powerful, feminist-minded paintings of Nguyen Thi Chau Giang.

Curators have taken pains to put the artwork and the individual artists, rather than their gender or ancestry, in the foreground: Intimate biographical information on each participant and detailed artists' statements accompany each piece.

Diane Mullin, associate curator at the Weisman, explains: "We've really striven to provide an avenue of exhibition for underrepresented artistic voices in recent years with shows like 'Changing Hands: Art without Reservation or Documenting China: Contemporary Photography and Social Change.' When 'Changing Identity' came to our attention a few years ago, we jumped at the chance to show it: These are artists who are deserving of a wider audience."

"Changing Identity: Recent Works by Women Artists from Vietnam" opens Feb. 1 and will be on view through May 24 at the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis. There is a preview party Saturday (Jan. 31) from 7-10 pm.