ART: Contemporary Art Latest Export from Vietnam

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Andrew Nette

HANOI, Jan 23 1996 (IPS) - Vietnam has a new look – extending beyond the headlong rush by western nations to trade with its former foe – and the opening up of tourist resorts, that reaches to the very culture of this nation.

Nowhere is change more evident than in the art scene, once dominated by the obligatory revolutionary paintings of socialist heroes and martyrs. Today, formerly-taboo naked bodies can be seen on canvas along with artists’ interpretations of such social problems as “HIV” and “AIDS”

Sexuality and the threat of AIDS are the main themes of much of the work from one of the new breed of Vietnamese artists, Truong Tan. While this may not raise many eyebrows in the West, it is astonishingly provocative in a country where, until recently, even classical style nudes were forbidden.

“I think when looking at my pictures people find something completely different, something that they have not seen before,” says 32-year-old Tan. “Sometimes they may be shocked, but I think that this is part of my success.”

Tan and other emerging Vietnamese artists are taking advantage of the economic opening up of the country and the ongoing fascination in the West for all things Vietnamese.

“There is a growing world market for Vietnamese art,” Cyril Lapointe, director of Hanoi’s fashionable Red River Gallery, says confidently. “What we are seeing now is only the beginning.”

Dealers and collectors from all over the world have become frequent visitors to the city’s galleries, seeking bargains. Prices for some works, however, are already commanding between 15,000 and 20,000 U.S. dollars a picture, putting the Vietnamese on a par with other leading international artists.

Lapointe traces the origins of this renaissance to a 1991 exhibition of 15 Vietnamese painters entitled ‘Uncorked Soul’ which was held in Hong Kong. “It was the first time that the work of Vietnamese artists had come under the scrutiny of international audiences and it received rave reviews,” he said. (MORE)