Ilza Burchett – On Contemporary Vietnamese Sculpture: In Search of a New Form

An attention – drawing sculpture exhibition of works by eight sculptors titled NEW FORM 1, marks a much welcome addition of a new exhibition space dedicated to sculpture to the very few art exhibition spaces available to artists in Hanoi.

The significance of this exhibition and the opening of this new additional space are inextricably bound together under the auspices of the experimental contemporary sculpture project NEW FORM and the idea of Mai Gallery to open “the first in Vietnam”, Vietnam Sculpture Gallery, “… to create a open space for communicating and making relationship between artists in sculpture and other fields.” (1)

Funded by a collaborative effort of sculptors living and working in Hanoi with the aim “… to explore innovative ways to experience working in a professional, collaborative environment.”(2), project NEW FORM has a clearly structured program with a broadly defined outcome:”… to overcome the stereotypes of traditional sculpture and to stimulate new thinking and creative possibilities …”(3)

The curatorial selection of artists and works sets the criteria in the form of general guidance to the artists of what is to be expected of their work in meeting the high artistic aspirations of the project, as outlined by the Project Manager of NEW FORM Sculpture project, Nguyen Anh Tuan.(4) It is greatly helped by an excellent essay / analysis, ‘Finding a Place in Society’, by art critic Phan Cam Tuong, which contextualizes the project’s aim and artists work in this exhibition.(5)

This formal introduction to the exhibition NEW FORM 1 is necessary and important, because the exhibition re-/ presents the first results of a project, which is driven by a strongly felt need by artists and culture workers in Vietnam to respond to the socio-economic changes experienced by their country and the world at large, to respond to the need for fine tuning their modes of reflecting (on) ‘the creative’ — its forms and its meanings — to the changing perceptions of their work at home and the high level of expectations of art on the world stage.

The exhibition NEW FORM 1 is a first successful step in this direction. It is successful not so much yet for the art that it presents, but for demonstrating the awareness of the necessity for finding new ways, for employing new strategies in seeking out to define ‘the new’ not just in words, but as actual works of art, which aspire to articulate forms of artistic expression that would be defined as “new”.

This endeavor is particularly fitting to sculpture as by definition sculpture is concerned with exploration and definition of form.

The works in this show are presented in a way in which their form actively engages in articulating the space and transforming the gallery’s neutral environment into an architectural, socially interactive space.

The process of searching for a new form in art is not an easy road to travel and the results — the successes and the failures — will take time to assess — they will mirror the slow and difficult process of discovering, separating and establishing ‘the new’ from ‘the old’.

All the artists participating in the project show that it is possible to rise to this challenge. The evidence of their abilities is in their work now on show.

An ambitious, but truthful, soul-searching art project, the judgment of which now belongs to everyone…

————
* Notes:
(1) Tran Phuong Mai, Introduce Vietnam Sculpture Gallery, paper available at the gallery.
(2) Nguyen Anh Tuan, New Form – A Sculpture Project, paper available at the gallery.
(3) ibid
(4) ibid
(5) paper available at the gallery.