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September 2003 Newsletter |
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Welcome to the September 2003 issue of the Vietnam Art Gallery newsletter. It's the first few days of Autumn/Fall if you're in the northern hemisphere, the beginning of Spring if you're in the other half. Wherever you are — it's a time for regeneration. Greetings from the team at VietnamArtGallery.com and we hope that wherever you are in the world, that you're healthy and happy. =============== CONTENTS ===============
==== Vietnamese Art—a Passion For Painting ==== Historically speaking, Vietnamese painting is still very young. A mere 70 years have passed since Hanoi's first official art academy, the Ecole de Beaux Arts opened its doors to local students, who there received their initial lessons in setting the brush to the canvas. But the cultural origins of painting in fact go back much further. Vietnamese people have created art for as long as they have existed. When the first classes in line drawing, anatomy and landscape painting were offered in the early decades of the twentieth century, art students drew on their rich religious and cultural background to execute their works. They incorporated views of their home villages, portraits of farmers in the countryside and techniques of lacquer and silk which had been used for centuries in temple decorations. During the French colonial period, these art students took to painting very rapidly. They already possessed the material needed to create painting, but had lacked the means to convey it. Today, artists in Vietnam still draw on the past to express themselves, but their vocabulary has expanded and their vision of the past has changed. Outsiders to Vietnam are often perplexed by the fact that, to their eyes, much of Vietnamese painting still resembles European painting. Some viewers are also bewildered because Vietnamese artists still choose to paint, when much of the world has moved on to digital imagery, multimedia installations and performances as a means of expression. Yet, if one examines the context in which artists live and work in Vietnam and the means available to them, it becomes clear that painting not only suits the sensibilities of Vietnamese artists because it can easily incorporate centuries of cultural motifs and religious iconography, but it is also the most immediately available to them. The European look that Vietnamese painting has is not accidental, it is often deliberate. It is not to be mistaken for imitation or copy.  Hoang Giap - "Waiting" - $250 Most Vietnamese painters admire Western art, and it is a sign of their desire to be treated as serious painters that much of their work borrows from Western art techniques. The content, however, always refers to the complexities and intricacies of Vietnamese cultural life past and present. Like other artists in the world, Vietnamese painters are moved by their environment and have chosen a particularly sensitive way of displaying their identities, histories and beliefs that combines color and poetic imagery. The artists who are represented in this exhibit have lived through the dramatic changes that have swept over their country in recent history. Some have been soldiers in three different wars, some are too young to remember the bombs that fell on their city; most have seen poverty and economic hardships and a few have now become celebrated artists earning ten times more money than they dreamed of just a few years ago. Regardless of their individual background, native city, educational upbringing or participation in their nation's struggles, all the artists included in this exhibit take their work very seriously. All are among the artists considered by Vietnamese art critics and art historians to be the most talented, best known and most professional. Yet each works in a vastly different style and media, and not all produce works that meet the standards or approval of the official government cultural institutions. To Vietnamese painters, meeting the consensus of the state's ideal of art is neither something to strive for nor a reason for rebellion. Most are content to search for their own personal voice and visual expression. In the past, official approval was more desirable because it supplied artists with a salary and materials with which to paint. Today, when many artists are able to sell their works on the burgeoning art market, in the galleries of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong and Singapore, they feel freer to rely on their individual experiences to express themselves. There are three generations of artists displayed in this exhibit. The older generation is represented by two artists who studied at the school established by the French colonial administration over 50 years ago. They are now revered by the younger generation of artists for having persisted in their art making during periods of serious economic hardships and government restraints. One of them, Bui Xuan Phai, was known at one time to have traded paintings for food. The other, Nguyen Tu Nghiem, resisted adapting to the ethics of the day and opened the path for younger artists to experiment with themes based on village folklore and popular imagery. Now, hundreds of artists have emulated him and incorporated village symbols in their works. The village has become the thread that ties them to their past. The artists who matured during the war often had to temporarily abandon their studies in painting to join the army or assist in tending the wounded. Women were encouraged to participate in labor production and enroll in university. Many of them were accepted for study at the art school. This middle generation of artists includes many more women than either the generation preceding it or the one succeeding it. Dang Thi Khue, an artist involved in this exhibition, is part of that generation. She spent years working for the state in various administrative positions and joined the executive committee of the National Arts Association for 15 years. She has not exhibited her works publicly for years. She reflects a concern among many of the women artists trained during the war for making a separation between the private and the public sphere. Almost as a reaction to the decades when women had to share their lives with their neighbors, colleagues, and families, many artists have chosen recently to develop their inner spirit and spend more time in their homes and in temples reflecting on their individual character and life stories. This is mirrored in works which depict the intimacy of their homes, personal possessions and family pictures.  Nghiem Quang - "Old Husband and Young Wife" - $160 The younger generation of artists present in this exhibition reveals the current concerns of Vietnamese youth eager to make a name for themselves in the widening intellectual and business circles. The work of this generation also reflects Vietnam's youthful energy anxious to leave the past behind and make their imprint on the future. But instead of embracing modernity and economic development, artists of today have chosen to look to themselves and to the artistic world that they are contributing to creating. Painting is a place for reflection and meditation, a safe haven from the outside world. Painters, much like poets and musicians, seek to make an impression on their audience and offer the vision of a better world through their works. Works by today's young artists are filled with references to Buddhism, ancestral altars, animals of the zodiac, village landscapes, mythical heroes and abstract compositions but fashioned in such a way that their literal meaning is often lost. Artists employ them as motifs, as emblems or substitutes for their feelings. They convey warmth, nostalgia, sadness and joy. It is as if artists are searching for themselves, their individual thoughts and sentiments after years of having to form part of a collective unit of artists, a community of workers, a nation of similar people. For years, Vietnamese artists lacked the opportunities that artists in other parts of the world have had. Few had been invited to exhibit abroad or had been able to sell their works to private collectors. Materials were scarce. Some artists could not even afford a canvas and a set of oil paints. It is their resilience and their determination that should be admired. Their imaginations thrived in the dearth of information from overseas. The result is a fierce resolution to paint under any circumstance and to explore the multitude of possibilities that it offers. These traits combined are what characterize Vietnamese painting and give it a freshness, an originality and a unique personality. A Winding River opens to the public at Meridian's galleries in Washington, DC on November 9, 1997. The nationwide tour will take the exhibition to six to eight other locations over a two-year period beginning in April, 1998. For further information, please contact Meridian's Arts Office at (202) 939-5518. Article from ThingsAsian. ====== Our artist of the month: Lai Long ===== Like Klimt mixed with Picasso's cubist women, this artist boldly uses color to seduce our eyes with smooth figures, warm faces, dreaming nudes, backgrounds of florals and gold, and sometimes talenous fingers.  Lai Long - "Nude 1" - $200 ======= Vietnam's Greatest Living Elephant Hunter ======= Buon Don, Vietnam - They call him the "elephant man", but it has nothing to do with his powerful, calloused hands, leathery skin and huge ears. Yprong Eban, 88, is Vietnam's greatest living elephant hunter. Since the age of 13, Eban has been hunting wild elephants in the remote forests near the Cambodian border in the Central Highlands, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather before him. After capturing 298 elephants during his long career, he finally hung up his buffalo-hide lasso in 1996, choosing instead to spend more time with his 22 children and scores of grandchildren.
"Hunting an elephant is like fighting a battle. It involves human beings pitting their wits against these intelligent animals," he said. Caught not for their meat, hide or tusks, the elephants were kept for domestic use or exchanged with traders in Laos and Cambodia for buffalos, rice and other essential goods. "My grandfather, who was known as king of the elephant hunters, once caught a rare albino elephant and he presented it to the king of Thailand as a gift," he said. A member of the Mnong ethnic minority, Eban spent his childhood years riding on the back of elephants. At the age of 17 he was officially recognised as a mahout — a skilled elephant handler — and quickly gathered a reputation for his hunting prowess and bravery. "Many people are frightened when they come face-to-face with angry elephants but you cannot be frightened otherwise you will fail. I thank my God that I am brave," he said. Contrary to their docile cousins in zoos and circuses, wild elephants, particularly males on heat, can be extremely aggressive and are capable of inflicting serious injuries, sometimes fatal. Eban, clad only in a loin cloth and a traditional Mnong black tunic, has the scars to prove it. His right leg was nearly severed when a young elephant gouged him with his tusk. "I was fortunate that it was only a child. Had it been the leader of the herd I would be dead. I have seen four hunters killed by elephants during my time." But elephants themselves are not the only dangers. His former hunting ground, now part of the Yok Don National Park in the central province of Dak Lak, is also home to tigers, one of 28 endangered mammal species in the 115,545-hectare (285,400-acre) reserve. "Once we were out hunting and a tiger pounced on our group and tore apart three of my companions. We could do nothing about it," Eban said. Between 10 and 30 people would take part in each hunt, riding two abreast on an elephant. The length of each foray into the forests depended on their success in tracking and capturing the herds. "Sometimes we would go weeks without capturing an elephant," Eban said. "The shortest hunt I went on lasted three days. The longest was 48 days and during that time we caught seven." Before setting out, he and his fellow mahouts would perform an elaborate, traditional ceremony to bring good fortune and keep them safe in the forests. Pigs and a buffalo would be slaughtered, copious amounts of potent rice wine drunk and the domesticated elephants taking part in the hunt paraded in front of the villagers. The men refrained from having sex for a week beforehand. "I was able to touch my wife's hand but not to sleep in her bed," Eban said, a broad grin stretching across his weather-beaten face. Given the extraordinary hearing ability of elephants, communication between the mahouts was restricted to sounds made by blowing through hollowed-out buffalo horns. Smoking was also prohibited in the forest. Once a herd was located, the mahouts would isolate one elephant and try to lasso one of its back feet. With the other end of the rope secured to a tree, the animal would then be lured into walking around in circles until it became ensnared. After being left for a day with nothing to eat, the domestication process would begin and the elephant given food. The captured tusker would then be led home, coralled by other domesticated elephants. Besides the trauma of capture, Eban said the elephants suffered no physical harm. "But for some really enraged ones we would have to put a rope necklace with thorns around their necks to keep them from thrashing around." Depending on the animal's temperament, the domestication process could take anything from three weeks to six months. "Elephants are very intelligent and a love soon grows between them and humans. In fact the bond between a mahout and his elephants is like that of a father and his children," Eban said. Although his hunting days are now behind him, he has not abandoned his daily contact with the giant mammals, spending most of his time at the national park headquarters, advising the younger mahouts. "The park authorities have taken me in to preserve me," he said in jest. "But now I am also concentrating on being a father again." His third wife, a 32-year-old, is pregnant. Article from ThingsAsian. ========= Café Lam ========= It was by accident that Nguyen Van Lam became an art collector. Books were his hobby. And when he wasn't looking for rare books, he was busy starting a café in the heart of Hanoi's old quarter. But some of his patrons couldn't pay, and gave him paintings in lieu of cash for long hours spent drinking coffee and talking. Forty years later, Mr. Lam is still serving some of the best coffee in town, and on the walls of his small, dimly lit establishment hangs an outstanding collection of modern Vietnamese art. Connoisseurs skip the city's Fine Arts Museum and go directly to Café Lam. And unlike the shiny new bars and restaurants springing up around the city, the one-room Café Lam is both an institution and an education. Mr. Lam opened his coffee business in late 1949 when he moved to Hanoi from the countryside. He began with just a sidewalk stand and later expanded to a café on Hung Voi Street. In 1956, Mr. Lam bought the building at 60 Nguyen Huu Huan where he still lives and works. The café became a gathering place for students and artists in the '50s, a turbulent time as French colonial rule was coming to an end and Vietnam was taking control of its own destiny. Many of the great names in Vietnamese painting passed through here: Nguyen Sang, Nguyen Tu Nghiem, Van Cao and Bui Xuan Phai, renowned for his scenes of Hanoi past. These artists were among the last students of the Ecole des Beaux Arts de L'Indochine, founded in Hanoi by the French in 1925. While their work reflects the French training, their ability to combine Western and Asian techniques has been a strong influence on younger artists. Their legacy now covers much of the chipped and peeling walls at Café Lam. The collection represents several generations of Vietnamese painters and is a lesson not just in art, but also in Vietnamese history. There are oils, watercolors, abstracts, calligraphy and landscapes of the Vietnamese countryside and extraordinary Halong Bay. The first generation of artists studied in Paris or under French teachers at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. The school later became the Hanoi College of Fine Arts and guided a new group of students during the war against the French. Yet another generation, many of them self-taught, came of age during the war with the U.S.Each of the almost 1,000 paintings in his ever-expanding collection holds special memories for Mr. Lam, and he has no plans to take advantage of Vietnam's growing art market. Standing beneath a portrait of himself by Van Cao, he says, "I have no favorite painting. I love them all." He dreams of having a space in which to exhibit the works properly. Some of the art is in the cafe, but if you want to see the full collection ask Mr. Lam or his wife to take you behind the beaded curtain that leads to their living room. Their personal quarters are furnished with an opium bed, a fan, a couch, two chairs, some of Mr. Lam's books, stacks of Chinese and Vietnamese ceramics and a seemingly impossible number of paintings. The works survived the American war in Vietnam in good condition - Mr. Lam moved them into an air- raid shelter for safe keeping. It's not as clear, however, if the collection and the landmark home on one of the historic 36 streets that make up the city's original ancient quarter north of Hoan Kiem Lake, the Lake of the Restored Sword, will fare as well in the '90s. Cafe Lam is ensconced on the eastern edge of the old quarter, a short stroll from the lake. It is one of thousands of charming but dilapidated buildings, some of them dating back to the 15th century, when the streets were named for the tradesmen who set up shop there: Silk Street, Flower Street, Paper Street. Even now, the best silk shops are on Hang Gai Street, and for chopped-fish restaurants try Cha Ca Street, literally "Fried Fish Street." But not everyone wants to live in an overcrowded architectural museum that lacks even the most basic amenities. Thus, with land prices skyrocketing and eager developers desperate to secure space in downtown Hanoi, construction cranes now crowd the skyline. Mr. Lam fears that old Hanoi, much of which can now only be seen in the Phai paintings on his walls, will soon be completely obliterated as conservationists lose the battle against the wrecking ball. "The American bombs were not very destructive compared to the way money is now destroying the city. The bombs did not destroy too many old trees and buildings. Now money is ruining Hanoi. I am sorry for the old buildings, the old trees." Although the artists are gone, the cafe still attracts a loyal clientele who sit on miniature stools clustered around seven worn wooden tables. Ceiling fans keep the house cool in the summer. You can also sit outside and watch the pedicabs and hawkers ply the tree-lined street. Nguyen Khuyen, editor in chief of the Vietnam News, has frequented Cafe Lam since his student days. He remembers the walls before they were covered with modern masterpieces. He remembers the days when the painters stopped by for a drink. Decades later, this remains his cafe of choice, a familiar haunt where he is sure to run into friends. But his main reason for coming to Cafe Lam is the coffee, and he boasts that he drinks it "straight," a form that many foreigners find a bit too robust. Even a few sips of the potent brew are contraindicated for those with heart conditions. Mr. Lam learned to make coffee from his father. He serves it hot, iced, black or, as is common in Vietnam, with a layer of sweetened condensed milk in the bottom of the cup. He points out that he can make coffee to suit French or Vietnamese tastes. What makes his coffee special? "It takes time to make good coffee. I choose the beans myself and dry them by a small flame and then grind them." Now 65 years old and semiretired, he has taught two of his seven children to carry on the tradition. The cafe, open daily from 6 A.M. to 10 P.M., also offers Coca- Cola, beer, Ovaltine and fresh-squeezed orange or lemon juice. The Lams keep a visitors' book in the back room. A medley of travelers, admirers and museum curators have filled the pages with sketches, tributes and messages in every language. One guest left these words: "One is drawn to the time when the masters wandered in and out exchanging a painting for a coffee and probably a good dose of encouragement and support. Your role has had an historical equivalent in every period in every place, which seems to bring us all together." In an increasingly commercial city, the house of Lam is one of the last places you can glimpse old Hanoi and bask in the romance and somnolence of an age that is all but gone. Getting there--coming from the direction of the Metropole Hotel or the Government Guest House, Cafe Lam is a block and a half north of Cathay Pacific's office on Pho Ly Thai To, a main avenue that continues into Nguyen Huu Huan. The cafe, faded yellow with green shutters, is on the west side of the street. A cadmium- yellow signboard hanging over the window shouts "CAFE" in bright red letters. The sign also has the address and two large words in blue: rang xay, meaning roasted and ground. Article from ThingsAsian. We were so inspired by Mr. Lam's story and have assembled a special collection of paintings that WE think they'll be writing about in 20 years from now, created by Vietnam's hottest new contemporary artists. But don't wait 20 years—get them while they're still bargains!  Le Thiet Cuong - "Life" - $800 - more >>  Nghiem Quang - "The Village" - $200 - more >>  Lai Long - "The Vietnamese Girls" - $200 - more >>  May - "Autumn" - $150 - more >> ============== Artist Roster ============== Our database of up-and-coming artists has doubled in the last few months and we now have over 750 original art pieces in our
database -- one of the largest virtual galleries on the Internet! Here's a rundown on the artists you'll find in our pages.
Think you can pick the next Bui Xuan Phai? Subscription policy: You're receiving this information because you signed up at our website - http://www.vietnamartgallery.com. To be removed, simply reply to this message with the subject "REMOVE". |
