KVT – A Body for Rent…..Pham Tuan Tu

KVT and a realm of ambiguity at Nguyen Art Gallery-Van Mieu

After enjoying the dark but quirky art work of Pham Tuan Tu for a few years at various group exhibitions, where he’s often the star turn, it’s a real thrill to see him do a solo. It’s a complex body of work that can be read from many angles and I’ve chosen a couple of obtuse.

Like the carp below Pham Tu’s works can be scaled to the backbone and there are still many layers left to decipher and if you take note of his canvasses those shed scales form elaborate backdrops to some of his paintings.

All of the faces you encounter in Pham Tuan Tu’s-even the carp above- are caricatured self portraits.

Tuan Tu’s first claim to artistic notoriety came in 2010 when he was awarded first prize in that year’s major art competition for young artists.

Not that his trans-sexual/transgender actors have improved on their delight in being scantily clad or have rarely become body beautifuls in the years since then.

I remember the shock of seeing what I called his gothic body of work in the competition…not so much in shock at the subject but more because one was framed in mirror slivers and it was the shocking realization that I had momentarily become part of the art work….it was as if the artist was challenging the viewer to reveal hidden fetishes and sexual desires.

This very handsomely presented exhibition at Nguyen seems to punch your solar plexus in the same deliberate manner

But first…….Apparently Tuan Tu’s mother was a medium in the Mother Goddess tradition and that from an early Tuan Tu’s mind and imagination was steeped in the dressing up in gorgeous costumes and jewellery, the trances, the temporary borrowing of his mother’s mind and body by a deceased soul-a ghost or god or perhaps a demon. He observed that the worshippers and devotees paid to temporarily rent the medium’s mind and body. He was fascinated but scared by the way in which the medium took on characteristics of different sexes.

He also saw male mediums cross dress as females and work as accepted mediums

With all this in mind I have decided to read rthe exhibition as though Tuan Tu has leased out his mind and body to illustrate the ambiguities that exist in our psyches and the mental chaos we often become embroiled in as we struggle to keep the private pieces and personas stuffed back where none, or very few, can recognize them as being unexorcised parts of us. …..the exhibition is thus named AMBIGUITY/AFFITA (affita from the Italian affitos to rent out or lease)….the settings are dark and full of tendriling obstacles to hold the secrets from escaping into too much light. The backgrounds are often detailed with elaborate patterns, baroque dreams. The scenes are usually framed in jade green and that green often infiltrates canvasses-perhaps something to do with the Jade god high above us.

Symbols of night and death occur to scare the wits out of the superstitious who shy away from owls

Tuan Tu makes the sacred and the profane clash delightfully…and from here on KVT attempts to do the same the same in his personal reading of what he experienced as an exciting, enticing exhibition that he’s heard others describe as being wonderfully irreverent, exotic, gorgeous repulsive, obscene, offensive, sexual, undeniably beautiful, darkly gothic, otherworldly, deliciously inviting, worth diving into…etc, etc

So here goes………….Instead of being dressed up in elaborate costumes and accoutrements by male acolytes like mediums in temples, Tuan Tu morphs into a female body form whose contours change with the fetish or sexual obsession being challenged by the artist

Though sometimes he takes on the guise of a Confucian mandarin or poet and imbues these portraits with a seeping, creeping sexual ambiguity

And here’s a good place to look at the delightful obsession with body hair throughout the works… Facial hair, pubic hair, nasal hair, tonsorial hair, underarm hair is usually portrayed with an affection and visual beauty that many modern viewers who are obsessed with hair removal will find offensive but that traditionally minded Vietnamese could find intriguing. It is painted with elaborate, tendriling care and once you become infatuated with it, some later canvasses that eliminate it seem strange

It’s in the upstairs gallery that the real drama of the exhibition occurs and if you can try and sneak into it alone and be entranced, enraged, even amused by all that’s on offer. It’s the transgender/transsexual/ homoerotic/gay aspects of the paintings that either attract or repel some people but it’s the intense visual drama in the overall collection that drives more forward, and sometimes just about overwhelms them.

You can’t help but be drawn to the altar at the far end where a Tuan Tu, the lead actor in this overwhelming play holds up a mirror within which you may catch a reflection of some of those things you’d rather stay secret and hidden. Those aspects of our personalities that we don’t want anyone else to know or decipher. Those darned fantasies and fetishes.

The sacred and profane push their tendrils around you as you slowly investigate them. Some will find the ghostly brides of Christ so delicately rendered on two layers of silk intensely and spiritually profound. Some will find them far too scary. Some may even get a sexual charge from the triptych

There’s even the cover of a manual about making love in and with ways that may rival the Karma Sutra

Once upon a time I’d occasionally be an observer cum voyeur and play Saturday night cards with a group of men in their late thirties and forties. They were all out of the closet in a time and place that made that a slight risk occupational wise. They were avid cross dressers and as the evening progressed, one by one they’d leave the game and sidle back dressed as women. One was always profane and chose the full regalia of a Catholic nun from the religious order of Perpetual Indulgence and for the rest of the evening was addressed as Sister Perpetua. Another always came dressed in one of those sleek satiny long dresses from 1940 movies…and here I wish I had an image of Tuan Tu’s similarly clad women with their heads resembling children’s curly mopped dolls….really horror movie stuff and the only picture in which his own visage was not on show.. Most of the card players chose lacy lingerie that accentuated their body shapes…from the obese with sagging bellies, to the tall and scrawny long distance runners, to the short and stocky with overdeveloped muscles.

And one always came out billowing as a bride in Chantilly lace

The most amazing thing about the cross dressing was that the faces of the participants, over decorated with make up, appeared to channel the persona they’d adopted

Then the night would ascend into a party where the ‘ladies’ exhibited themselves lasciviously as Sister Perpetua played rag time on an upright piano

Danced into the wee hours

But hoped that all the frivolity stayed within four walls so that their secrets stayed safe

Which in the modern era of face book, selfies and digital communication interception would be virtually impossible

There are canvasses that really pull you into the realms of the night and even sado-masochism with the arrows of Eros-or Valentine- becoming devices to persuade, to wound with, to rape with, or to enjoy in other ways

And below in a tryptich on wood from a young Artists’ exhibition in 2011

Now back to the beginning and the medium, the renting out and the ambiguity.

The canvas above, which is the first you encounter as you enter the gallery, introduces us to the zodiac animals that, for believers, lease our personalities for as long as we live. The ambiguities and the painful fragility of those animals’ earthly existences are beautifully, poignantly painted and you are perhaps left wondering if the tiger or the monkey may soon add their names to the mythical dragon as once upon a time animals.

In the middle is the naked medium (the artist) in fetal position being taken over by ghost, god or demon….in this case an actual physical possession of the body…the face masked

And then our eyes are inveigled to enjoin a fantastical, visual adventure through the gallery

….. Introducing us to the medium leased out to a monkey

…..a pig

…..and a rooster…which we later discover, in what I refer to as the altar piece, is the sign under which Tuan Tu was born in 1981

Tuan Tu includes pieces that relate to ongoing series such as heads in Hoan Kiem that supplant the sacred turtle

And a delightful series on currency which takes me back to memories of my occasional card evenings but has more say about the people who make the rules, demand conformity while they do enjoy fetishing around to their hearts content

An excellent show that you’ll either love or leave and if you love it then I’ll drop a hint that canvasses are really well priced for an artist who’s on the way up.

Some of the works intended for exhibition were disallowed but would pass with nary a second glance in most places

Try to get hold of the very nice catalogue for a look and a read of some opinions more erudite and real than mine

My apologies to the artist for inaccuracies in my reading of the works and also aplogies to future viewers at Nguyen Galleries in that I’ve included some images of Tuan Tu’s work not on exhibition.