KVT – Blacked out on Halloween

KVT into the blacker bits

Monday evening capped off a really good art day.

Project Black had its first outing in Hanoi at the Cinematheque. The project’s blurb states that ‘it is a year long project featuring young emerging Vietnamese artists who are exploring the edge and for that reason have remained outside the established Vietnamese art scene’. Every month, in conjunction with Fon Ya Gallery in Taiwan, a short documentary will be presented exploring the work and motivation of one of these artists.

It sounds like a good, innovative idea. On Monday, apart from a few technical hitches towards the end of a nice little video about Hue artist Tran Huu Nhat who works pretty exclusively in charcoal on paper and canvas – sometimes on a monumental scale, the series made a promising start.

I’ll be looking forward to the next event in a month’s time.

The documentary gave us a good insight into the artist’s early life and motivations. The young Taiwanese director seems to be into a type of punk rock and this punctuates the story. It would be interesting to see the resultant effect if other types of music…or non at all…had been used. The use of a reworking of The Beatles songs ’Back in the USSR’ over a montage of work-a-day Hue was foot tapping but, I thought, used provocatively rather than contextually. Of course the video was presented as an art piece and, had the evening progressed without its hitches, we’d probably been able to question the artist (who was present) and the director and most of my queries would have been adequately answered.

I’m looking forward to seeing the video in total. The venue precluded showing a collection of the artist’s charcoal drawings but those shown in the documentary looked as though they could be engrossing….exciting too. Whether the artist is working, as seems to be stated, on the edge of the avant garde is debatable…but a lot of his work that I’ve had a glimpse at is certainly different from the Hanoian norm.

The documentary was preceded by a nicely and very contextually provocative bit of dance performance art. A short performance but very chilling! Called ‘Speak out!’ it seemed to encompass important themes such as repression of the truth, muting the press and free speech, to name a few. The dancer/performers Le Nguyen Manh and Le Anh Hoai were riveting and the sound track was often beautifully in contrast to the sense of dread, coercion and violence. Certainly a noir performance piece!

I’d love to see it again. Lots more to digest !

The night started out with growly blues and softish metal sounds from guitarist artist Nguyen Minh Nam. Appropriate lead in I thought….nicely abrasive but very listenable.

I sincerely hope that Project Black keeps on projecting more stuff our way…and more of those two excellent performers please!