KVT – Life is a Cabaret

Bui Gallery woke from hibernation, gave a big stretch, sharpened its claws, growled out loud and opened its doors into a blaze of brilliant red and deep jade green and a nicely provocative Shadow play.

After thoroughly enjoying the new exhibition (on until 31 Aug) I decided to have as much fun with my opinion piece as the artist did with his paintings.

When I saw artist Le Nguyen Manh gesturing sinisterly, yet lasciviously, from his black, shadow filled den I didn’t know if I was going to be titillated by a Vietnamese version of ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ or was being welcomed into a Vietnamese cabaret…and Kabarett it turned out to be in the style of the mid 1920’s Weimar Republic.

The MC as narrator leads the audience in mute diegesis through scenes that are filled with political and social satire laced with a hint of gallows humor. If you can spare the time, take an intimate journey with him so that you can gather in the special little details and naughty bits and be waltzed through shimmers of red as subtle as crimson velvet; hot as freshly spilled blood… wicked, tricky, sticky…  as inviting as expensive red wines…and sinful! Be slowly tangoed into greens as luscious as piled emeralds; hard with green envy; bitter as limes; cool and inviting as soft grass in deep shade on the hottest of days; comforting yet betraying!

It’s Kabarett in which you become a voyeur with the, sometimes tongue in cheek, and tongue slithering between lips, MC as he takes you into his sometimes risque and burlesque stage show that mocks himself and digs long, bony, questioning fingers into some flaws and fissures in his society.

He is at times the devil’s advocate, the haloed saint, the unrepentant sinner, the split personality, everyman in androgynous drag… benevolent but dangerous. Probably a bit like all of us! At times he’s leader of the band and at others pipes the tune in identical chorus. He’s likeable yet laughable. He’s wicked though vulnerable. He’s both ambivalent and childishly playful. A touch decadent. A soupçon dangerous. A bit like a lot of people I know… except that they wear normal clothing.

Enough!! Before someone points the boney finger at me!!!!!!

It’s a nice performance piece that’s been stilled onto several canvasses (yes Le Nguyen Manh is a good performance artist as was evidenced in his fishy performance

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NApil1KP-JY&feature=related[/youtube]

at that now defunct but lamented Hanoi Future Art (see posts on HG about Hanoi Future Art here) space…a space that provoked or appalled but always with youthful energy and an in-your-face attitude….the sort of experimental space that needs to be in every city. A sort of local wannabe Cabaret Voltaire).

In this latest performance Manh takes on the alter-ego of all artists (in particular the alienated artist), that of Pierrot, with the white face that suggests both innocence and the pallor of the dead; an insular physicality and a muteness that is both poignant and poisonous. Red-eyed Pierrot became Mein Herr of the Kabarett and my personal interpretation of his exhibition rolls wickedly onto my computer screen.

Welcome back, galerie de Bui, to the land of the exhibitionistic, and may we have more frequent cabarets.

Congratulations Le Nguyen Manh. As much as I liked your previous surrealistic type work,  I like this much better.