KVT – Young Artists and frustration

For the second year in a row I’ve been under-whelmed by the Young Artists’ Exhibition at 16 Ngo Quyen. This year it is named in honor of the 1,000 year celebrations but it certainly doesn’t seem to be celebrating youthful vitality or innovation… Some years you go along to a Young Artists’ Club exhibition and you get a glimpse of the really talented up and coming young things and occasionally a heart stopping moment when you realize that you’re in the presence of something spectacular.

This year it’s mostly a bit tired, old hat, plainly derivative or boringly amateurish. The whole thing is an exhibition looking for a creative curatorial process and a curator brave enough to say ‘no way can we hang that stuff!’

At least this time around there is some space on the walls between pictures.

Out of the lot I picked Luong Trinh’s clever and rather lovely sculpture installation of rocks…..Tran Quay Dung’s diptych of big men on big motor bikes ….and a very rural and bucolic yet intricate lacquer work by Chu Viet Cong…..a large.reclining nude also grabbed me for a bit  but I ‘ve lost my notes and thus the artist’s name.

It’s on until the 6th.