KVT and Ugly = Beautiful
The sort of face that leads censorious adults to inform their offspring that if they aren’t careful the wind will change and they’ll stay like that forever! (If only!…exclaim the kids hopefully.)
I was really intrigued by the four teeny ceramic pieces that add a nice touch to the exhibition. Too often artists put on an addend to their exhibitions that doesn’t seem to gel, but these little ugly/beautiful disguises are a treat and I’d love to have them all. They’re titled ‘Happily Broken’, ‘Blame a Lame Lamb’, The Emperor’s New Clothes’ and ‘My Rabbit’. See if you can fit a name to a face.
The other cunning installation is the pig mask hung at face height in front of a large mirror. The curator sees it as as being reminiscent of a penis in flagrante. An interesting allusion which, until I read it, I was more at home with the family of papier- mache masks that are sold as instant disguises for kids during the Mid Autumn Festival. The artist references her installation to stories such as The Three Little Pigs, gluttony, and the pig as part of Muslim and Judaic cultures and these make the piece sing beautifully.
Excellent exhibition that will tick the right boxes for most discerning viewers. I’ve been wanting to see a solo of Phuong’s faces ever since I first saw bits and pieces of her incredibly seductive, even sexy, work. I’m totally sold though I hope my comments aren’t too far off the transformative mark.
| Kiem Van Tim is a keen observer of life in general and the Hanoi cultural scene in particular and offers some of these observations to the Grapevine. KVT insists that these observations and opinion pieces are not critical reviews. Please see our Comment Guidelines / Moderation Policy and add your thoughts in the comment field below. |
An exhibition capricious and unconvincing enough to be able to claim any big artistic ideas territory in terms of content, but presented in a way that was claiming it all — the ‘allegorical social comment’ genre seem popular with the younger generation of Vietnamese artists today — the aesthetics of a formalism at its distilled bottom line could be persuasively effective in that.
Here we have beautifully presented watercolor paintings on ethereal organza silk stretched in heavy, solidly crafted and aesthetically immaculate wooden frames and some toy-like miniature sculptures positioned on protruding from the wall wooden boxes, suggesting preciousness + a suspended mid air mask in front of a mirror, which is banality itself and is a lazy ‘art’…
One feels that this art is about to altogether disappear overwhelmed by the impeccable craftsmanship involved in its presentation — and, here the learned formalism in this art is in full contrast to the excellence of the formality of a genuine craft.
This works are: mannerist, simplistically illustrational, elementarily moralistic, formulaic, pretentious.
And, by the way, (talking about “masks”) what is transparency?
Not the hole in the wall…
hooly dooly Ilza. Love your response but I’m afraid that I have to side with KVT on this one though I’m often on your side. Keep your disections coming along.
@ hoola hoops
…I have no argument with KVT’s expose…
…I have argument with cute art …