KVT – Remembering Hanoi 2013

Vietnamese version available – Đã có bản dịch tiếng Việt

KVT looks back @ seven months’ cultural events in Hanoi

PROLOGUE

Since 2009 I’ve put together an opinion piece about what were the events that grabbed me most in the Hanoi cultural scene but as I was out of the country for about five months in 2013 I almost decided not to comment.

But like Mehitabel the alley cat I said ‘what the heck, what the heck,’ and here we are again! with an opinionista’s take on some of the most impressive stuff that rolled along when I was resident in the concrete dusted city.

I only include the stuff that made my own feathers dance and tremble (and I’m really sorry that I missed out on the SOUND STUFF FESTIVAL because it annually makes my tail pinions tremble and flare)* and this year there’s no top of the pops or a descending order of merit, just a stream of consciousness in the garnering of good memories

Anyone else with favorites that I didn’t get to see or have omitted can easily respond with their own via the comment box at the end of this compilation…especially about the good stuff I totally missed in ,March/April and from mid July till late October, keeping in mind the following:

ELIGIBILITY: the individuals/groups have to be Vietnamese or Viet Kieu; if non Vietnamese they have to be an integral part of a Vietnamese group, or have lived here for so long that we tend to think of them as being adopted by the locals and hence one of us. Their work had to be seen/heard/performed/etc in or near Hanoi during 2013-which I’ve extended to include the count down weeks to the end of the lunar year

* sorry for alluding to cats and birds in stuff from the year of the snake

THE FACTS: ONE PARTICULAR ZONE

2013 WAS THE YEAR OF ZONE 9 that started with a bang and a promise of great things to come as we stumbled up ill lit stairs to an array of art studios, cafes, bars, nightclubs, fashion crannies, architects nooks, and some gorgeously minimal apartment spaces.

Bohemia rubbing shoulders with glitz in what was becoming a huge attraction for locals and tourists and a promising place for public art spectacles.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/78061813[/vimeo]

The year ended with the ZONE being closed down and its residents and lessees ejected into the streets. But from the metaphorical ashes some phoenix arose. In the case of Tadioto the mythology resonates as it now in its third incarnation. Nha San Collective reverted back to its origins in a defiant display of the avant garde. Studio Four found a new space to renovate and innovate inside

Before the axe fell the Nha San Collective mounted an intellectual, across the media festival that focused on the work, social issues and dilemmas faced by the Vietnamese LGBTQ community and individuals.

It was a brave and intelligent thrust towards an open, unfettered dialogue in the art scene and one hopes that the three attractive faces behind the collective will have the courage, and receive support, to continue pushing the envelope

THE FACTS: MOVING IMAGE

Some Vietnamese video art practitioners are doing wonderful, world beating stuff. Tran Luong’s ‘LAP LOE’ from his Red Scarf series has been shown internationally and this year at the Guggenheim in New York. It can be read intently from a Vietnamese perspective but it resonates with a plethora of associations and, for basic example, it would not be out of place in a great cathedral in a pre Good Friday meditation on the scourging of Christ.

Unfortunately the exhibition, like Zone 9, was only allowed a brief run……

unlike ‘SOLO FOR A CHOIR’ which existed memorably at Goethe for a few weeks. It’s the third in Nguyen Trinh Thi’s trilogy in which she and her large cast of like minded artists make a subtle protest about the stifling of individuality and creativity and about conformity and conservatism that attempts to mire them in a stodgy blancmange. The first Video was exhibited at this year’s Singapore Biennale while the second has yet to be approved.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02BqQC6P-bY#t=30[/youtube]

Doclab’s experimental film makers in association with the US based Echo Park film center and collaborating with one of my favorite musicians Tri Minh, plus his talented friends, gave a wonderful showing of ‘THE SOUND WE SEE: A HANOI CITY SYMPHONY’. A grainy compilation of 18 black and white films shot on super 8 film was projected onto an enormous screen in the Goethe courtyard with the live musicians seated in front. This You tube link is of the musicians composing the score parallel with the actual film. Excellent stuff!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy6OQ5cWC-8[/youtube]

Then there was Phi Phi Oanh who installed her lacquer and light show, PALIMPSEST, at L’Espace to show once again that the boundaries to lacquer use are hard to define…..She later went to Singapore to install her brilliant Scapula at the Biennale. Phi Phi is included here even if her images were moved by hand.

THE FACTS: INSTALLED

Of the installations I managed to catch the most profound was Nguyen Manh Hung’s ‘ONE PLANET’ which was brilliance personified. Manzi persuaded the artist, now based in TP HCM, to bring his body of work to Hanoi after a runaway successful show at Galerie Quynh down south. Hung’s previous work on the same theme is being exhibited internationally and I suspect that this one, or parts of, will also be on the same scene.

I totally fell in love with Tran Duc Quy’s fabulous multi mirrored animal at L’Espace. This large animal of fable and fantasy needs to be set up in a place for perpetuity where kids who can still wonder, and adults who have preserved that ability, can gather and commune with it and each other.

The Museum of Art rented out two rooms so that Thai Nhat Minh could turn them into an aviary of handsomely sculptured birds. The exercise cage featuring desperate fly lines outlined in bamboo strips was enough to put you off caged birds forever.

Ultra luxury Cuc Gallery has had a couple of extra good shows in a space at the apex of the Women’s Museum. The installation of ‘edible’ skulls made out of rice paper wraps was stunning when seen lit properly and the associated man trap brought me up with a start. Rich Streitmatter Tran never eases to amaze.

In the same space Cuc gave us Saigonese expat Vivek Chaudray representing his ViveKKevin gallery with jewelry that is impressively beautiful, particularly that of Viet Kieu Sam Tho Duong from his ‘Frozen’ series.

Vu Kim Thu came back to her home city after ranging through interesting parts of the world in the pursuit of her art practice and installed an intricate set of miniatures in boxes at L’Espace. Thu’s work gets more compressed the further she wanders and the results tend to be unique and Lilliputianly intriguing

THE FACTS: CANVASSING

I was woefully ignorant about Russian plein air artists until an online discussion arose out of my opinion piece about a group of five young Vietnamese plein air practitioners whose exhibition at Nguyen Gallery in Van Mieu was a total delight and should have been a sellout for Dang Hiep, Trinh Lien, Le Thuy, Duy Tung, and Duy Hoa

The artists’ spokesperson came aboard and agreed that the influence of the 19th century Russian movement, The Itinerents/Peredvijniki, was definitely in their midst

The same gallery ended the year on another high note with Luong Trung exhibiting powerful canvasses that told vignettes about people who had been relocated from their old neighborhoods to new high rise and the unsettling effects it had on them. A really top notch exhibition!

Manzi teamed up with the Finnish Embassy and art Vietnam to give us expat of 20 years, Marita Nurmi’s very whimsical, fanciful, funny and very thoughtful show of ANIMA. Her work just gets better and better and word has it that she will soon have a tall surprise in store for her many fans.

A selection of her older series in an anteroom still shone with vivacity and huge appeal.

THE FACTS: STILLS

Manzi and expats leads us to Jamie Maxtone-Graham’s solo of his very involving ‘THE DESIRING GARDEN’ photographs direct from an exhibition in Bangkok. I called his body of work exquisitely beautiful…a little exquisitely repulsive…but always intellectually engaging. Excellent work to be with and a joy to decode. The nude, pregnant woman images were extremely beautiful.

Jamie also curated a group photographic exhibition at Goethe of work done by fifteen participants in a 3 month long workshop that Doclab conducted. Naturally I can’t say that all of the work grabbed me, but the pieces that did would hold their own in professional exhibitions… with my favorites here and here with the following students from the course being awarded gold stars: Binh Dang, Nguyen Thuy Tien, Truong Que Chi, Khong Viet Bach, and an anonymous installationist. The exhibition’s title ‘AUTOPSY OF DAYS’ was eye catching and apt.

FACT: FOREIGN EXCHANGE

Last year the Asia Link International Workshop, ART UNDER THE ROOF was a fascinating project that brought 14 practicing artists from around the world to share their skills and experiences with a load of Vietnamese artists in a week at the Muong Cultural center in Hoa Binh…not too far from Hanoi. This year some of the artist’s output was retrospectively on show at the Viet Art Center in Yiet Kieu. It was an interesting and sometimes WOW breathing event

FACTS: HIGH NOTES

Composer and musician Vu Nhat Tan collaborated with violinist Trinh Minh Hien for an evening of exhilarating new music at Chula. Wonderful ‘sonatas’ on both acoustic and electronic violins accompanied by Vu Nhat Tan on his array of sound making instruments. Totally good sound stuff.

Maestro Tetsuji Honna conducted the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra while Vietnamese classical music Icon and favorite son, Dang Thai Son, played a marathon of all five of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos spread over two nights at the Opera House. The almost 100% Vietnamese audience was as overwhelmed and as enthusiastic as I was. Two nights to swoon with!
Here’s a not too good quality You Tube clip of the maestro playing ‘The Emperor’ with the VNSO on one of those memorable nights just to give a glimpse of soloist, musicians and conductor.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msct_9NmY28[/youtube]

Continuing with the VNSO…..guest conductor Andrea Pestalozza made them jump over some difficult hurdles for 12 minutes in a hair raising interpretation of Ravel’s ‘La Valse’

Conductor Honna led a supersize orchestra augmented by musicians from Japan and Scandinavia and including renowned harpist, Yoshino Naoko in a non solo role, through a breathtaking 50 minutes performance of Richard Strauss’ tone poem ‘Ein Heldenleben’

A Honna hat trick of excellence is rounded off with memories of another brilliant Japanese soloist, Imai Nobuko who joined her viola with the VNSO in a totally magic and gripping 18 minutes playing of Schnittke’s ‘Monologue’ composed in 1989 which proved that the VNSO can do up to date stuff superbly. It was so good that I went and heard it twice

A good place to end the music is to go back to January and the auditorium at L’Espace where chamber music group Song Hong proved that they had hit the big time with their interpretation of Shostakovicvh’s ‘Piano Quintet Op 57’. It was a tense and gritty 40 minute marathon and the smiles on the faces of the players below indicates that they are, and should be, tickled pink with such a grand performance.

Their last performance for the year gave us Mendelssohn’s ‘String Quartet No 2’ which added to the group’s luster

FACT: A GOLDEN FINALE

The New Vietnam Circus presented a version of their much world traveled show ‘LANG TOI’ – ‘MY VILLAGE’ at the Kim Ma Cheo Theater, just in time for Xmas. It was the perfect antidote for the cold weather and the exigencies of the silly season.
It was the second time I’ve caught this wonderfully clever and golden troupe giving a totally full blown golden performance and when they come around again I’ll be there for some more magic and nostalgia

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3FeMCsSQow[/youtube]

FACT: SURVIVING

Manzi has survived and even thrived as an art space which is no mean feat in the present economic climate. As a commercial space it has to pay the salaries and bills (pun not intended) and to do this has to pander to the establishment as well as gradually committing itself to an avant garde stance.
This year Manzi rates an A plus rating because it has been true to its values and has included more and more exhibitions and events and collaborations that loom towards the intellectual cutting edge such as its last exhibition here intelligently critiqued by Bill Nguyen, a partner in Manzi

It seems, more and more, to be a congregating place for artists to talk the small and large talk which is essential if ideas are to flourish and refine, and for ways and means to tunnel out and away from the stifling blancmange mentioned earlier in this piece

FACT: APOLOGIES

To lots of my favorite artists featured in volume one of the GRAPEVINE SELECTION, volume two of which I will definitely try not to miss in September this year… and to  the makers of stuff I could have got along to see and wanted to get along to in December, but the desire to get into the countryside along the Duong River and escape people who wanted to cough cold germs and spray yellow viscous fluids all over me took precedence…as did a dog called Oc from Phu Quoc who likes to run for kilometers and leap and play in tall grass and dredge for fish in still ponds.

IN MEMORIAM:

I am saddened by the recent death of a friend and one of my all time favorite Hanoi artists Bopha Xorigia Le Huy Hoang . I am compiling an obituary to honor his life and work and my solitary walks with Oc, when I sit on the banks of the Duong and gaze into its flow allow time for meditation about his sincerity and gentleness and the beauty and intensity that were the essences of his ‘Scarf’, his ‘Rain’ and his ‘Wall’ …image courtesy Jamie Maxtone-Graham