KVT – A Creative Friendship

KVT helps the Koreans and Vietnamese celebrate

The Koreans have organized a short term exhibition of 14 Vietnamese artists and 20 Korean artists at the Viet Art Center in Yiet Kieu. The Korean component is made up of mainly smallish, on the wall pieces due to, I surmise, ease and cost of transporting. The Vietnamese input consists of sculptural and 2D entities in a variety of sizes.

I couldn’t help but notice that while the Koreans have a female representation of 60%, the lone Vietnamese female artist puts us a measly 7% in the gender stakes.

Four works really hit me in the eye and made an impact that ensures I get along for another viewing before the exhibition shuts up shop on Monday, 26. Before I continue I’ll, once again, excuse my images which, too often, don’t do the works justice.

The overall high spot for me was Do Tuan Anh’s large diptych, ‘Undetermined’. It’s a very recent work and based on a personal, tragic loss, as I discovered after the exhibition. It is extremely powerful and worthwhile making a trip exclusively to stand in front of it.

‘Falling’, an extremely beautiful and delicate paper sculpture by Korean Jeong Tae Jeon is really arresting. It’s 65x 65x 15cm. The literally minded might read it as a contoured landscape.

Vuong Van Thao has exhibited three of his latest confronting and challenging skulls in composite blocks. They are covered in letters and titled ‘A Di Da Phat’ which- I think- is the intonation that Buddhists make after a scriptural reading or spiritual announcement. Perhaps translated For Christians as ‘Amen’ and for Muslims ‘Amin’, meaning so be it or we confirm this as truth. It’s a continuation of Thao’s exploration of blind ideological conformity that squashes individuality’…or that’s how I see it!

The long, black, sinuous, steel sculpture,’ Night’, by Dao Chau Hai is another beguiling exhibit that is somewhat lost in the space provided. I’d love to see installed where it takes pride of place.

I also fell quite in love with Vu Duc Trung’s quietly glowing lacquer of a slumbering head. It’s called ‘Tomorrow I Have a Dream’ and its interpretations are varied.

The two other two Korean standouts for me were both mixed media pieces. Lee Hye Gyung’s ‘That Day Shouts’ held me up for a long while

The vivid paper covered boxes arranged in grid formation by Lim Soo Young are so intricately drawn upon that the artist at present exhibiting at L’Espace, Vu Kim Thu, would certainly feel pulled in by them.

Following are the other works that grabbed my attention on my first visit

Ta Dinh Khiem’s ‘Soul of Rock’ is worth a meditation

Ngo Hai Yen’s lush though tentative feeling lacquer is up to her usual high standard

The pig made up of a background of X ray sheets in a light box by Doan Hoang Lam is just about too delicious for words

Hoang Hai Anh’s ‘Sound of Spring’ had me anticipating my next venture out into rural areas where water lilies are thinking of displaying their buds. I just about burst into a Xuan song

Then there was Tran Luu My’s abstract expressionistic look at the ‘Old Town’ that had me reminiscing about my student days infatuation with the work of Joan Mitchell.

This ‘Friendship’ exhibition is well worth a visit…if only to catch Tuan Anh’s exceptional diptych. It closes on the 26th