KVT – Tuong Amidst the Eyes and Owls

Just when you think that the year couldn’t come up with any more surprises just when you’re getting ready to collate your list of the top of the pops in 2010’s Hanoi art/culture scene along comes something on the second last night of 2010 that knocks your socks off.

Brilliant was the only word for it!

Ly Tran Quynh Giang closed her outstanding 5 day exhibition at the Viet Art Center with an outstanding musical event. It was all over within an hour but the vibes will stay with me for a long time.
An end-of-exhibition feature is a great idea, especially if the exhibition has been a critical success. The opening night is sort of a rehearsal for the main event. The artist is on tenterhooks and waiting for the nods of approval from the audience.

The main event, for me, would be a sumptuous, candelabra-ed banquet with lots of friends in the midst of the art. For Giang it was a public soiree with stupendous live music surrounded by all of those wonderful painted eyes and soulful faces.

Pianist, Pho An My, played a selection of emotive pieces, sometimes feisty, sometimes withdrawn but always with intense passion and you felt a tacit approval emanating from all of the self portraits. The acoustics in the gallery were in tune with the music’s intent and wonderful sound streamed from the belly of the piano, rolled and wove around the walls and surged off the low ceiling in translucent, often surging waves.

The piano would have been memorable enough, but the best was yet to come. A special Tuong composition for traditional instruments (flute and drum), voice, mime and piano provided one of my top music and sound highlights of the year. The music had moments of sadness, madness, panic, ecstasy, manic joy, depression and soaring wonder that made you feel intense empathy for those people that populated the walls.

The best ending to any exhibition I’ve ever come across. So often they close like T S Eliot’s ‘The Hollow Men’ not with a bang but a whimper. Sort of like a sad dog’s droopy tail.

Most good exhibitions are pieces of theater and Giang’s drama on canvas was excellent theater and one of the few that played with elan right to the final blackout. Standing ovation!

I felt so privileged to be there.