KVT – Part 3 of Sculpture Exhibition

The Emperor’s New Floor Tiles

The last artist in the 3-part sculpture exhibition at the Viet Art Center has given us what some would call an ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ exhibition. You walk into the fully-lit gallery and look around bewildered and think you’ve got the wrong day or wrong place. You see a couple of men lounging in a corner and asked in halting Vietnamese when the exhibition will be on, and they gesture to the floor.

You immediately want to say ‘but there’s nothing there!’

And then you realize there is. A selection of black acetate squares have been adhered to the brown floor tiles….same size.

Judging by the footprints, some bewildered visitors have walked over them searching for something with substance.

Ok! So it’s a minimalist floor piece, site specific.

My mind wanted to make some sense of it and I thought crossword puzzle? Map? Code? Mathematical formula?

Artist Phan Phuong Dong has succeeded in laying down an installation in the same abstract minimalist vein as famous French artist Daniel Buren (my mind is still attempting to categorize) who used regular, contrasting maxi stripes to integrate visual surface and architectural space…usually historical landmark architecture, twice the Louvre. Whereas Dong’s contextual idea fits any tiled public space and, like Buren’s, could be installed as a permanent, site specific architectural fixture (and probably be as controversial if it was officially commissioned).

Another example that springs to my categorizing mind could be the permanent installation of minimalist light fixtures in the courtyard at the Goethe Institute where they are asked to integrate with a distinctive architectural style and other imposed ornamental impositions. At their public presentation the reaction from many was, ‘so what!’ But familiarity has bred more than a modicum of admiration.

Is Dong, like Buren, inviting us to challenge traditional ideas about art? Good idea at the present time in Hanoi. The general art scene could do with a challenging shake-up.

Whatever! Once you get into it and wander around, it grows on you and you start to get involved in Dong’s work and like it….well I did…and part of that liking is watching the puzzled looks of people entering the gallery and their subsequent, enveloping into it, or their nodding acceptance of it in case it might be ‘art’, or usually their leaving hurriedly wanting to shout to the world that the emperor’s naked!

A good ending to a good and challenging 3 part series.

And some of you may now be having an ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ reaction to this opinion piece!

To read KVT’s review of the other two parts of the sculpture exhibition, visit:

Part 1: Exhibition of Dao Chau Hai.

Part 2: Exhibition of Van Ngoc.