KVT – Snakes Alive!

KVT tangles with the dragon serpent at L’Espace

I dropped into L’Espace to get a couple of tickets to coming events and as I entered the exhibition space I noted with pleasure that the Dragon Serpent installation was still rearing its head up to the dark, matted clouds and coiling its way around a golden tree loaded with ripe fruit.

The installation is by three artists from three different generations and apparently interconnected by games kids play….or as I read it, used to play. Thus I’ll read the three artists work from this angle and hope I don’t tread on any toes

So here goes……..

It’s an attention grabbing exhibition…especially that woven dragon snake… and as important as pleasant recollections of the mid Autumn games that children used to play, in less commercial times…..when Tet Trung Thu spread its aura of excited anticipation of tin toys; paper scholars; moonquakes with salty, golden suns at their centers that milky teeth could actually nibble and not be overdosed with chemicals; grapefruit that were miniature green moons full of sticky juice; little pig skin drums  that made exceptional noise for little boys; papier mache masks of folk tale characters for kids to hide behind in dreaded anonymity; dragon dances that bounced and boomed and pranced along echoing alley trailed by tails of wide eyed tots hands firmly attached to anhs and chis; lantern parades weaving their illuminated paper stars through a night as black as fear before the moon came bellowing up over the trees, the moon in everyone’s’ memories- riding the sky like a golden puffball. Of course it never rained on Tet Trung Thu.

One of the games, I was told, was where kids would grab hold of each others’ shirt tails and whip and weave around like a dragon or snake and perhaps it’s this one that one that Bopha Xorgia Le Huy Hoang is referencing with his marvelous creature beautifully woven from thin bamboo or rattan.

I wonder if such simple concepts and traditional games are understood by the latest generation of urban kids ….Though the lucky ones may have oldies in their extended families who are making sure that old magic is kept alive and that the plastic and commercial hype doesn’t take over….or worse still, that Tet Trung Thu doesn’t become just another video game to be played in splendid isolation.

It’s no great secret that I consider Bopha Xorgia Le Huy Hoang to be at the top of the artistic pile in Vietnamand that everything he exhibits generally gets my enthusiastic nod of approval. My infatuation started with his huge khymer scarf made of palm sugar and coffee grounds many years ago, and cemented into awe and wonder with his Rain made of hundreds of thousand radish shoots, thousands of acupuncture needles and nylon thread.

So much of his best work has been designed to fade, dissolve or die but he told me that he’s going to install his woven creature over the river in Gia Lam so that kids can enjoy its magic for a while.

The other artists, Vu Hoang Vu and Le Quang Than are also proficiently talented artists and the collaboration must have been loads of fun. The suspended golden tree, roots and all, representing, I guess, the gold foil ones that are sold outside pagodas or put on family altars, is rather beautiful. I should delve deeper into the symbolism but don’t really want to spoil my selfish interpretation

It’s a nostalgic exhibition that’s really nice to be with and it certainly made my imagination skip.

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LIGHTS IN THE CAFE

I don’t know if the light installation on the café wall at L’Espace is a planned art work or a clever piece of interior design but it certainly gets my nod of approval and mark of ten out of ten.

I’d love to know the names of the artist/designer/maker because I want some too