KVT – Art under the Roof

KVT and an international show

ART UNDER THE ROOF kicked off its life at the Muong Cultural Center just outside Hoa Binh last autumn. The Center should be on everybody’s’ travel agendas either for day trips from Hanoi, stop overs on the way to places further such as Mai Chau and Son La, or an overnighter in the Center’s guest house where the quietness may blow your mind after the exigencies of Hanoi.

Loads of Vietnamese and invited International artists converged on the Center for a prolonged live in and art in.

The results of some of their work can be viewed at the Center and a whole lot were on show in Hanoi at the University of Culture. Another lot of unseen results are now at the Viet Art Center in Yiet Kieu in a delectable exhibition of paintings and sculpture (one installation) and ceramics that provide really nice viewing in the run up to Tet (and a little after).

In fact its worthwhile spending some time at this well curated show (given the space and the number of works it is certainly nicely curated) just to see what can happen when a big mob of good artists can be put in a relatively isolated space for a long period to share ideas and techniques and ideologies…sometimes with a language barrier that had to be jumped in a variety of ingenious ways.

I guess that there was a lot of cross pollination of ideas and about ways too create art which was probably one of the most important aspects of the whole thing.

Following are some of the works that grabbed me on my first visit…when I see it again there will be others that make some pale into lesser import…but for now I hope you enjoy ……

The wonderful wolf by Mongolian artist Sambuugin Mashbat

And counterbalancing this is a gorgeous sleeping dog by Malaysian artist Goh Chai Seng

A nice Vietnamese piece was Vu Bach Lien’s woodcut, ‘Avoiding the Rain’

Indonesian, Dadi Setiyadi’s ‘Welcome to New Life’ stood out well

I was taken in by another Indonesian’s perforated paper piece, ‘Friendship’ by Hadi Soesanto

Now the above are by no means my favorites, just the ones I re-reviewed on my way out and that began to take an iota of precedence.

A Taiwanese wall pieces took my eye…a piece by Tsai Chit Rong…but I wonder if its position of immediate number one for me is my predeliction for stripes and geometric abstracts

Two Indonesian paintings were really nice…a Hoa Binh landscape and Muong cloth patterns by Januri and Hardiana (the latter going along nicely with Vietnamese Nguyen Huy Khoi’s ‘Position with Muong patterns’ which I really took to.

Off the wall I would have loved to have stolen American Eileen De Rosa’s ceramic bowls while Italian Guiseppe Strano Spitu’s ‘Sedimentation’ stone carvings were sensuous. Philipino, Denis Gonzales installation ‘Birds in the Garden’ was as sad as it was eye catching, Vietnamese, Nguyen Khac Quan’s ceramic Muong shirt was a stunner and compatriot Tran An’s steel piece was eloquent. ‘Images of Me’ by Thai artist Chairin Thanatcha was a nice marriage of stone and wood while the ceramics by Romanian, Bianca Boerolu were to die for……..images below in order of mention in text….

Two Muong pigs were really nice…by Vietnamese Bang Sy Truc and Malaysian Ng Bee

A delicate reverie by Malaysian Tang Yeok Khang was a viewing respite

Then it was into the Vietnamese contingent to enjoy bits by Huy Oanh and Phan Dinh Phuc

From the rest of the International contingent there was Australian, George Burchett’s ‘Horse’ and Belgium’s Natalya Zaloznaya’s beautiful and delicate garment

As I said at the beginning…the next time I go to see the exhibition again I’ll have a whole new set of favorites so I’ll leave my camera home

The Exhibition is very recommended viewing.