KVT – A Dragon in Chau Long
(Vietnamese version available – Đã có bản dịch tiếng Việt)
KVT gets very excited about wall art and a Bookworm Dragon
Narrow stairwells can be boring spaces and the staff at the Bookworm in Chau Long Street were particularly bored with theirs. So when young artist TRAN CHI THANH visited from his new base in Danang, they asked him if he could do something about it.
In fact Bookworm has been enamored with the work of Tran Chi Thanh for a couple of years and as they have sponsored an artist every year since 2006 to do research, mount an exhibition, travel overseas, have time out to paint, etc, it was decided that this year it was his turn.
Thanh looked at the space for many days and announced that he’d like to paint a Vietnamese dragon ascending the stairs
Because the Bookworm had full confidence in the artist’s taste and talent they told him to start straight away. So he did that night -as soon as customers had departed
And night after night the magical animal took shape
And morning after morning the Bookworm staff would arrive to inspect their new best, fiery friend…….
……..until it was finished and unleashed, in all its colorful magnificence
Come September a soopa doopa kids’ competition with soopa doopa book type prizes will be announced so that the stair well soopa doopa stair well dragon can have a name.
…..already its been reported that when times are quiet, the nameless Vietnamese rong is learning to speak English and the words to the song ‘Puff tang he Magic Dragon’ echoe eerily up the stairs
The Bookworm, like some other lucky Hanoi-ans got to know about Thanh’s talent after a Project Black event featuring him at the Cinematheque in 2012.
Thanh had been commissioned by the Taiwanese sponsored project to paint a series for them and he had been so incensed about the recent, senseless slaughter of the last remaining Java rhinoceros left in the wild in Vietnam….slaughtered solely for the supposed aphrodisiacal properties in its horn…that he painted a powerful, emotional personal response.
The corpse, like any human corpse found on the streets is covered in a woven mat, ironically here in mat woven with the symbol for happiness
That mat became a symbol for a lot of Thanh’s angry paintings about the senseless killing of endangered animals for titillating menu items for the rich.
Or to cure ailments and disease
Or just to prove how environmentally irresponsible your money made you in you quest for better sexual prowess
Tran Chi Thanh (pictured with what remains of a tiger) had started his quest into endangered species and endangering practices with the canvas below that comments on an unsustainable fishing industry. The canvas was selected for a large exhibition in China and was what initially bought him to the attention of Project Black
On a trip to Hanoi last year the Bookworm staff took him to visit the Bear Rescue Centre at Tam Dau and this resulted in a second series on endangered animal species
To see this series in full, angry swirl click here for powerful images that should make your blood boil.
The lemur was selected for an under thirties exhibition in Singapore this year
If you can access this link you may begin to understand why the Vietnamese staff at the Bookworm have made Thanh their favorite artist
Tran Chi Thanh was born and grew up in the province of Quang Tri which the Americans tried to bomb to hell and back and it is Thang’s early experiences of child acquaintances losing limbs-or worse- to unexploded ordinances that, he explains, gave him an empathy for the endangered and the suffering
Thanh also does beautiful watercolor pieces as bread and butter art
and it was his ability with pond fish that earned Thanh his next huge wall art commission in Gia Lam…..but more on that at a later date
To conclude……a rather wonderful, super real painting from an English artist Ray Hare at the Tate. It certainly brought some attention to the plight of elephants and would hang quite beautifully next to Thanh’s last Vietnamese Rhino.
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Kiem Van Tim is a keen observer of life in general and the Hanoi cultural scene in particular and offers some of these observations to the Grapevine. KVT insists that these observations and opinion pieces are not critical reviews. Please see our Comment Guidelines / Moderation Policy and add your thoughts in the comment field below. |