Does Contemporary Vietnamese Art still have something to say? Part 2 of 3 by Laurent Colin
- cnualart
- Dec 22, 2012
- 9 min read
Artists as victims of their environment?
To explain the current slump in Vietnamese art, and the absence of international recognition, there is a natural (and too easy) tendency to exonerate local artists by presenting them as “victims”. Victims of difficult material conditions, victims of a narrow-minded Fine Art School which continues to privilege conventional education ignoring conceptual art and the new forms of visual art, victims of the absence of venues in which to exhibit or opportunities to learn about new creative trends and, finally, victims of the lack of interest of local authorities with the right to impose censorship.
Whoever is a little bit familiar with Vietnamese art circles knows very well that this victimizing speech is totally biased and misleading. Paradoxically, it is probably much easier these days to be a young artist in Vietnam than in any European country. As a matter of fact, nobody can deny that most names that I have quoted so far benefit from a status and material conditions well above common people in Vietnam (and so much the better for them) [v]. This talk of empathy serves as an excuse for a local artistic community to not really question itself. It is also fully supported and spread by foreign advisors/curators devoted to the assistance of “Vietnamese artists in despair” as it justifies their actions and the related necessary sponsorship.
But where in Europe can a fresh graduate who has yet proved nothing have easy access to a gallery to exhibit his or her works, publish catalogs, print invitations and organize openings? In the last couple of years, foreign institutions, inside or outside Vietnam, always eager to team-up with Third-World Avant-Garde, were fighting among themselves to welcome and assist the same little circle of official artists from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, while they are often unable in their own country to support contemporary creation and public art education. In relation to the small size of the Vietnamese artistic community, the number of invitations received every year to exhibit abroad or participate in a residence in Europe, Japan, Singapore, the US or elsewhere significantly exceeds what their counterparts in the West can expect. Thus, the Vietnamese artist is from the very beginning probably overexposed if we take into account the maturity of his or her artistic research.
As for the attitude of local authorities, its supposedly negative impact must be objectively analysed to avoid the cliché of the oppressed artist who has to stay underground. In Vietnam, you have state-owned structures to exhibit art, including contemporary art, and the Vietnamese Fine Art Association has made significant positive efforts recently to be involved, with sometimes limited results as the young generation still prefers to be supported by foreign sponsors, more prestigious in its view. Concerning the pressure and control exercised, if one cannot deny it exists and has to be deplored, it also has to be noted that the impact remains limited as the few sensitive subjects are identified and leave the artist with enough room of manoeuvre. I personally consider more violent the economic censorship in Western countries, where most artists are deprived of financing or places to exhibit.
Finally, the very traditional teaching provided by the School of Fine Arts in Hanoi is just another cliché. If one can blame this institution sometimes for being rather conservative, one cannot also deny its recent efforts to adapt, and that generations of former students have benefited from a high level academic education hardly found these days in Europe. If, from time to time, Vietnamese artists manage to attract the attention of art circles, it is with no doubt due not only to their personal talent but also to the quality of this basic education initially introduced in Yet Kieu Street in 1924 and continuing until now (hoping this level can be maintained). Thus, when artists recently tried to break out on their own in the alluring world of installations, videos and other performances (still not in the core program of the School), the vacuity of the artistic content appears blatant.
Numerous but non selective galleries
While galleries have sprung up everywhere in Hanoi and in Ho Chi Minh City, it is still difficult to find a place with an exhibition policy with a critical approach and coherent aesthetic criteria. The following categories can be suggested for those who wish to identify the different types of structures in this artistic jungle:
Galleries for tourists or souvenir shops with their cheap exoticism (silk-painting, lacquers depicting the One Pillar Pagoda…)
Self-proclaimed “Art Galleries” (for example, in Hanoi: Apricot, Green Palm, Hanoi Studio, Thang Long, Van Gallery) which all offer, on several floors and under halogen spotlights, the same selection of allegedly established values (Nguyen Thanh Binh, Hong Viet Dung, Nguyen Thanh Chuong, Pham Luan, Bui Huu Hung, Nguyen Thanh Son), with young ladies in ao-dai showing you around and promoting any art mass producer as a “Vietnamese master”, “a leading artist in famous collections in the US and Europe”. Thanks to the crisis, several galleries in this category have closed. Besides, the real economic rationale of these structures owned by shopkeepers (rather than art connoisseurs) has always been questionable. How can they be profitable? Where does the money come from? What is the real motivation of the owners?
Lastly, galleries managed by foreigners on a Western model and international criteria which, despite their apparent professionalism, still often suffer from a lack of perspective and selectivity. Priority is put on concepts, ideas and objects to create buzz and be talked about and, secondly, to present or sell anything under an Avant-Garde veneer.
However, those who still think that if Suzanne Lecht had opened in 1994 a silk shop in Hang Bong rather than a gallery of contemporary art (ArtVietnam [vi]), the Hanoian Art scene would not have suffered too much are wrong. Despite the lack of selectivity illustrated by this rather strange policy which consists in putting on the main stage graduates fresh out of Art School or letting artists regularly show exhibitions which are just a mere rehash of what they have done for years, there is absolutely no doubt that such structures with international standards are much needed to assist the development of Vietnamese contemporary art.
Similarly, if the significant investments made by The Bui Gallery since 2009 do not always succeed in compensating some weaknesses regarding the selection of works and artists, it still gives a good idea of what may be achieved one day in Vietnam to enable competition with established galleries elsewhere in Asia (subject to concentration upon mature art works rather than on experimental but too often conventional products).
Hanoi, as Ho Chi Minh City, saw in recent years contemporary galleries and alternative spaces/projects that knew good and bad fortunes (some closed or fell asleep) and a chaotic artistic agenda targeted mainly at expatriates (Salon Natasha, Ryllega Gallery, Suffusive Gallery, Studio Tho, Maison des Arts in Hanoi and Gallery Quynh, A Little Blah Blah or San Art in Ho Chi Minh City)[vii].
But too often, the job of the gallery owner in Vietnam is complicated by the immaturity of the artists who do not understand the necessary loyalty to a structure that supports and promotes their work over time. Whatever the efforts deployed by the manager of the gallery, perceived rightly or wrongly as that of sales professional with limited artistic judgment, the artists of Vietnam are ready, from their very first success, to go to the competitors – as they generally reject any exclusivity and any dialogue with a gallery that questions the evolution or the stagnation of their work.
Abroad, galleries exclusively or partially dedicated to Vietnamese art, offer the same range of what is presented locally: commercial products (Apricot Gallery and OC-EO art in England), so-called Avant-Garde under influence (IFA in Shanghai) or a mix of both (Thavibu Gallery in Bangkok).
Before concluding on the beginnings of the Vietnamese art scene, it is worth having a quick look at another recent interesting phenomenon. Since the beginning of 2000s, and mainly in Ho Chi Minh City, more cosmopolitan and less artistically structured than Hanoi, legions of foreign artists/curators [viii] appeared, mostly from Vietnamese origin, and settled down. Educated in the West (particularly in the US), they are keen to help and give a new insight on contemporary art (and probably also a new start to their career) in Vietnam. In theory, their return to this country was an ideal opportunity to build a bridge between two cultures: Western contemporary art (notably video, performance, installation) and a Vietnamese artistic potential likely to be waiting for them to take-off. Some of these newcomers enjoyed an already established reputation and recognition by international institutions. But at the end of the day what we saw was no more than a small but very dynamic circle of Viet Kieu talking to other Viet Kieu. What was the real impact for Vietnamese artists of these experiences which mobilized over the decade, mainly in expatriates’ circles? Even if all projects should not be treated equally as some of them did prove to have real content, we were still too often confronted with an average body of work similar to what is regularly presented in Western countries, but in a simplistic form stuck in a Vietnamese context, faced with total confusion and misunderstanding from the audience. There are several reasons for that: a still fragile artistic legitimacy but also complicated individual stories and relationships with the country, plus, in certain cases, a limited knowledge of the local culture (not to mention a total ignorance or claimed indifference towards what Vietnamese artists had done before their arrival). Their Vietnamese origin, their open-mindedness, and their will -often honest- to spread the Avant-Garde message, protected them from any colonialist suspicion, a common worry in Vietnam as soon as you import foreign references.
Lack of domestic market and local interest
There is no denying that one of the main obstacles to the development of Vietnamese contemporary art is the quasi-absence of a local market. In the past, before the opening of the country, there were a few passionate collectors [x] benefiting from some level of purchasing power at a time when most of the population, and particularly the artists, was experiencing real poverty. Such art connoisseurs bought works for very little directly from artists as the latter were not in a position to sell publicly nor exhibit works that were not in line with the Party aesthetics norms. These enlightened collectors who were also inspired businessmen, smart enough to develop an interest in art at a time when art was not a day-to-day priority, managed to gather in their homes major artworks by leading artists. In return they gave some support in a very personal way to the art community. Unfortunately, after their death, these precious collections were mostly scattered, instead of being taken care of by museums. As for the heirs of the artists, they proved to be, as usual, more business than art oriented, selling quantities of significant works to foreigners (mixed, if needed, with forged ones).
Today, we notice little interest among the Vietnamese for domestic artists’ works. This is not perceived as a constraint by contemporary artists who usually do not give a damn about the local public, their target remaining foreign institutions and buyers.
Yet, the economic development in Vietnam recently lead to the rise of a new bourgeoisie for which a taste for art is part of the social outfit or, more simply, individuals taking a real interest in the national heritage. Thus, a new generation of Vietnamese collectors, not exclusively but mostly from overseas origin, is coming up with a clear focus, for the moment, on antiques (bronzes, Hue ceramics, and to a lesser extent on established values of the first generations of the Fine Arts School of Indochina) but no real appetite for contemporary art. Gradually, things will probably evolve with an increased number of local experts and art lovers with aesthetic awareness. But we are still miles away.
© Laurent COLIN, 2011
[v] With even in some (still rare) cases the bourgeois outfit (colonial houses, branded cars…). As for Thanh Chuong, he did not hesitate to simply build on 3 hectares a “Palace” 30km from Hanoi. An interesting initiative if it was limited to testifying to the cultural heritage of Vietnam and not something done to promote his status and his repetitive works (please also note that you have to pay for the visit).
[vi] www.artvietnamgallery.com. ArtVietnam Gallery in Nguyen Khac Nhu street closed in August, 2011 which may be a sign of the difficulties encountered to maintain a contemporary art space in Vietnam. In spite of the reservations one could have sometimes regarding the selection presented, this closure is definitely not good news for the Hanoian art scene.
[vii] All these projects should not be assessed in the same way, as some had a positive impact on the development of Vietnamese art, such as Salon Natasha which played a pioneer role in Hanoi in the early 90s.
[viii] To name but a few: Dinh Q Lê, Tiffany Chung, Richard Streitmatter-Tran, Phi Phi Oanh, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Ha Thuc Phu Nam. Also the French artist Sandrine Llouquet, or Australian artist Sue Hadju and curator Zoe Butt.
[ix] Duc Minh, Pham Van Bong, Nguyen Van Lam, Nguyen Ba Dam, To Ninh , Tran Van Luu ou Hoa Hai. There were also private local collections held by friends of the artists in Hanoi. Tran Hau Tuan’s collection in Ho Chi Minh City remains a specific case as the owner was too young to really be friends with most of the artists and his approach based on very active marketing and publishing actions, buying and selling paintings by numbers, is not always easy to understand.
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