The arts choose us, or not

In the barrel of concerns for the fine arts landscape and market in Vietnam where professional values are yet to be defined, augmented by, among others, the lack of a clear direction, the confusion presented in and by artworks between the real and the fake, the ugly and the beautiful, and all the reputational harm in the eye of Asian collectors, the coming to being of Dolphin – Viet Gallery in No. 4 Lieu Giai, Ba Dinh, Hanoi is facing quite a big challenge with the message and mandate it aims to carry. That is, to provide a sincere and accurate introduction to Vietnam’s contemporary fine arts, to help improve the quality of public cultural life, and to aspire to create a local arts market.

 

Dolphin – Viet Gallery is launching its opening at 6.30pm on 29th September 2009 with an exhibition called Origin of a new road, which consists of 28 painting and sculpture artworks by four artists, namely Lương Xuân Đoàn, Vũ Hồng Nguyên, Nguyễn Khắc Quân and Nguyễn Xuân Tiệp. On this occasion, Culture & Sports (TT&VH) brings to you an article by arts critique Phan Cẩm Thượng.

 

1. It is very hard to tell if Vietnam’s arts are growing or stopping to grow. But artists are finding it more and more difficult to create arts, as many other art forms such as installation, performance and video art have emerged and broken all traditional aesthetic habits and formats, and also as there is not yet a local arts market and social problems are much more complicated than what artists are interested in or concerned about. Painting is still a pursuit by artists, but it does not play such a leading role in the arts landscape as it once did. Together with sculpture, the three art forms mentioned above have made strong youth-seductive steps and have quickly established themselves.

 

Artists from the ages of 25-30 have completely changed their preferences and forms of expressions. They are no longer fans of modernism, nor are they concerned about wars or traditional culture. Instead, they switch more to immediate personal emotions and demands, showing their extreme selves using shocking techniques and working more towards pop arts assuming their roles as artists of international quality.

 

Whether you like it or not, current Vietnam’s arts have gone through fundamental changes in its nature in the context of a nascent market economy and the shortfalls of industrialization and rural modernization. Studios proliferate. Arts camps organized by the arts community leveraging various sources of funding replace subsidized old-fashioned movement-based arts activities, pushing old models to a boring corner.

 

A variety of regional exhibitions are being organized by Vietnam’s Fine Arts Association just to attract no visitor right after the opening days are over. Artists and sculptors who refuse to work and make arts without some financial funding or investment or a new exhibition can convince no one. And hundreds of all-look-the-same artworks by hundreds of yet another artist have shown how creativity is so weak and how so little personal development is happening.

 

All this said, the aim is not to propose a pessimistic submission. In fact, it is very interesting as it shows real demands for changes to happen in art-making trends, in artists’ social responsibilities, and in the way arts are practiced. There’s little value in movement-based subsidized arts. Instead, arts must be a self-motivated force, and artists must face social problems and interpret and explain them in their own ways.

 

2. The four artists in the exhibition have practiced arts since as long as the 1980s. Whether their art creation is plentiful or little and whether it is of good quality or not varies from time to time and from one perspective to another, but at least they’ve created their own languages and have been consistent with the road they chose to pursue.

 

Lương Xuân Đoàn (born in 1952) is a diligent government officer, an artist with a pure trust from inside his heart, or in other words a man with a belief for himself. He paints army men, days of wars, and young soldiers who would never come back, and more recently, Mother Goddess and mediums. Not novel, not so romantic, but poetic, and holistically convincing.

 

Nguyễn Xuân Tiệp (born in 1956) is an artist of strong persona, if not stubborn and conservative, which may explain why he has always been loyal to his own way of painting for the last 30 years with little if no change at all. The artist has found his own language in stable structures, and even the way he feels for colors is so unique it becomes a very strong instinct from inside.

 

Nguyễn Khắc Quân (born in 1962) is an artist who works with ceramics. Quân builds on the ceramics traditions of Bat Trang and Phu Lang ceramics craft villages, and combines them in his works, which are both artistic and sculptural. Dignified and serious with his artworks, Quân tirelessly stretches himself while keeping each and every detail under control.

 

Vũ Hồng Nguyên (born in 1976) is from a somewhat younger generation compared to the three others. Nguyên is loyal to lacquer abstracts, exploring various new techniques. Lacquer abstracts’ self-explanation has been amplified by many young artists, who have the courage to add to it many unprecedented textures and surface techniques. Nguyên’s paintings are vastly dreamy, allowing the artist to keep going into his own world without being stopped.

 

All of them are in their middle ages, and will continue with a long way ahead, even though we can already see their uniqueness established. Arts are no easy game for any one, and it is arts that choose us and not the other way round, even though painting is something completely personal and voluntary.

 

Art critic Phan Cẩm Thượng

Culture & Sports Magazine 2011

 

Other Archives

Art Critique

Season without seasons

By Luong Xuan Doan

Year 2015

The eternal Encroachment from nature, season without seasons of Vu Hong Nguyen must be chasing mysterious streaks of time, which are invisibly attached to anyone anywhere in their destiny and ...

Press

Sediment

By Architectural Magazine

Year 2015

There are traces which can be anxious and suspicious but calmly note down various shapes of nature, of sky and earth. These unintended glimpses, sometimes play strange rhythms with the paint ...

Press

The arts choose us, or not

By Phan Cam Thuong

Year 2011

In the barrel of concerns for the fine arts landscape and market in Vietnam where professional values are yet to be defined, augmented by, among others, the lack of a clear direction, the confusion ...

Press

Young artists look to boost their stock

By Nguyen My Ha - Vietnam News

Year 2006

Catching up with the stock market action that has swept Việt Nam in recently, the Young Artist Club under the umbrella of the Việt Nam Fine Arts Association next Monday opens their annual exhibition, ...

Press

Streaks of time

By Luong Xuan Doan

Year 2005

Burying himself in the bottom of the board, closing his eyes to see with his ears and breaking up the metaphysical barriers of time, Vũ Hồng Nguyên safely retains the slow rhythm of lacquer ...

Art Critique

In search of one's own identity

By Nguyen Xuan Tiep

Year 2005

Elderly artists make it clear that their chief concern is to most thoroughly express their own ideas. They love and make art as if urged by their personal need. ...

Press

Seeking shades of gray

By Heritage Magazine

Year 2005

The surfaces of Vu Hong Nguyen's lacquer paintings are thick and textured, the paint sometimes pooling outward like watery photograph paper and other times tangled like dried glue, the oils ...

Art Critique

The front and the back

By Phan Cam Thuong

Year 2005

When we paint a picture, we wish to share exprimable and unexprimable hidden feelings with ourselves and at the same time we hope that everybody will know this from our paintings. The stroke, ...

Press

Time Traveler

By Discovery Magazine

Year 2003

“I draw my dreams, my desires, my present feeling and also my memories. All swarm in just a moment and I try to catch every single one of them. When they all go away, my mind is felt empty, ...

Art Critique

Vu Hong Nguyen and his constant search

By Nguyen Xuan Tiep

Year 2003

Vu Hong Nguyen belongs to the 4th generation of painters, the ones who live in an open artistic environment which favours every artist’s search for self–assertion. It creates very good conditions ...

Art Critique

There's another eye like this

By Luong Xuan Doan

Year 2003

Having opened for himself another eye to see and perceive things, Vu Hong Nguyen is yet reserved and reticent when he does not know where to go amidst an artistic life already on the wane after ...