KVT – Take Five

KVT recommends five in Hang Bai

There’s a really nice group exhibition at the Exhibition House at 29 Hang Bai, probably one of the nicest group exhibitions I’ve seen in Hanoi! Nicer because it’s been beautifully and thoughtfully curated. Not that it’s been themed didactically. Somehow it just coalesces. Might be something to do with the artists’ similar ages. All except one born in’79 with the other just 4 years older

There are five artists in the show. Three are in the video art category and somehow those three pieces work too.

“The Party’ by Nguyen Ban Ga is a really good video installation in the back gallery. It runs on a 10 minute loop and is a delightful mix of reality and video illusion. The fish dish in the middle of the table looks delicious as its picked at by 4 sets of chopsticks. My favorite part is when the participants-shown only by arms and hands, do a chuc suc khoe with their drinks.

Nguyen Tran Nam’s ‘Bu’ is another good one, part video.. part real object though, unlike Ga’s, the two are separate but vitally linked. Spotlit on the floor are pieces of rubble, probably from an old building…bricks and stones. Indentations in these are filled with pools of sweet liquid and what looks like condensed milk. A video to the side shows bees and ants collecting the sweet stuff to take back to their colonies. Some become mired in the stickiness. I think ‘Bu’ is an old Vietnamese word for mother and if so then its not difficult to extrapolate a meaning to it all….or a conversation.

Sharing the side gallery with Nam is Nguyen Hoa Van’s wall size, black and white and very grainy, 14 minute video of traffic moving very slowly in what is peak hour flow on a very congested Hanoi road. It doesn’t appear to be a traffic jam, just one of those crawls that envelope about three quarters of the city’s mobile population at least once per day. When you sit and watch the screen for a while you seem to be in the middle of it all with your mind going blank as you move slowly towards the traffic lights, the rumble and blaring horns becoming droning white noise. Titled ‘Haven’t Thought About’ could refer to beaurocratic stalling on traffic conditions or just to the state of mind the drivers and passengers automatically lapse into when their world creeps into slow motion.

Nguyen Thanh Hoa has a large selection of small embroidered canvasses, many with paintings on them. Her overall exhibition name is ‘Only A Thread’ and there are 4 themes ie: Paddies and Plants/ Only in Heaven. The pieces are attractively framed in pairs and most come together beautifully and definitely delicately. Its hard not to be impressed and many viewers will be attracted to them… and at only approx $200 a piece, may even consider a purchase. I really like the way in which they’ve been installed and the way in which they compliment the fabric work of the final artist.

Every time I see the work of Virginie Faivre D’arcier I am mightily impressed. Her pieces always remind me of haiku, floating or flowing. In her minimally presented section she has small pillow-like works lined along shelves. The pillows, or “Cocoons’ are roughly stitched and some are open at the seams to reveal paper stuffing. Each is made from recycled clothing material and the paper is also used notepaper. D’arcier states that her work is all about memory transformed and many viewers will be like me and find it all memorably entrancing.

The exhibition called “FIVE YEARS’ finishes on Sunday after an all too brief 5-day life. I only hope that the group will get together soon for another joint venture….or individual gigs.