KVT – Delectably Affordable Art Part 2

(Vietnamese version available – Đã có bản tiếng Việt)

KVT still doing cart wheels around Dong Phong

Read part 1 of KVT’s Affordable Art Exhibition at Dong Phong Gallery.

They say that Nguyen Dinh Hoang Viet is likely to be the NEXT BIG THING in Vietnamese art so here’s a reprise of some of his affordable $100 pieces for sale at Dong Phong @ 3 Ly Dao Thanh St…..not far from the Metropole and the Press Club.

In the early years of this century an excellent little gallery called Suffusive was hidden away in Bao Khanh St and it used to highlight the work of recent young art schoolgraduates. It was a fabulous place to pick up affordable art works before the signatures on them became famous. I still kick myself for not grabbing a handful of ceramic pigs by now exceptionally famous Ha Manh Thang.

For some reason there are now no places in Hanoi that exclusively address the output of young, emerging artists and so we miss out on being able to guess who may be THE NEXT BIG THING.

I recall when one of my very all time favorites, Vuong Van Thao (born 1968) was emerging and his Bum paintings were very BIG THINGS at places like Salon Natasha which also used to search out and highlight those young artists destined to make it BIG. For an overview of those delectably brilliant bums see the latter part of my opinion piece about a small retrospective of his work and during which I couldn’t resist buying an early, affordable canvas

On the walls at Dong Phong are a couple more of in similar pose at a more than reasonable price of $250 (They come from an ongoing series called Bodies and Dreams)

The same artist’s Living Fossils really made Thao a very BIG THING in private and public collections throughout the world beginning with models for his large sculptural blocks of houses in the old quarter (a series bought by the Singapore Art Museum) and some of these models are delectably sitting waiting for a canny buyer at prices up to $500…which is an increase in value of 100% over a very few years…and if you were one of the purchasers of one at the Bookworm Art Space way back in 2007 you got a real bargain. See more links to Thao’s fossils here.

Particularly delectable are Thao’s new houses that are see through, almost lacy.

I could keep on raving on about Thao’s living fossils because I love them…. especially my section of the Long Bien Bridge and a spaghetti crowned, loudspeaker sprouting light pole similar to this one.

Another artist worth following is Doan Hoang Lam (born 1970). Click onto this Saatchi site and you’ll soon know why.

Lam is very well known for his recent Avatar series and for his use of paint etc on X ray sheets

in the series and his affordable and very delectable Avatars at Dong Phong are worth every cent of the $500 being asked (the same price at Saatchi)

If, like a lot of my neighbors you are into cats, particularly pregnant pussies, then Pham An Hai (born 1965) has one to die for at (acrylic on paper)

Hai has been considered one of Vietnam’s foremost abstractionists and I well remember falling in love with his work as far back as 1998, not long after he’d graduated from art school…and I still kick myself about not getting a couple of canvasses.

At present I’d love his pink reclining Buddha on a wall…and his snakes are nice too. Prices are up to $400.

Doan Xuan Tang (born 1977) became well known for his ethnic type portraits and landscapes and not too long ago I was really enamored of this exhausted mountain horse …in fact I still am.

Tang’s affordable bits at Dong Phong are a digression from his Dan Toc themed work and are prints of nudes pressed from metal plates. They have a delectable movement flowing through them and are $300 each

The last artist on show should prove really popular with bargain hunters of good art bits.

Luu Vu Long (born 1977) is much at home in both Hanoi and Munich. And his very affordable drawings of kids should be hugely popular…priced from $50 to $75.

Perhaps I may be taken to task for not criticizing the way the affordable bits are displayed…but rather than a hindrance to my viewing, the configurations put me in mind of a kid in a sweet shop not knowing whether to purchase licorice allsorts, jelly babies, chocolate balls, fizz bombs, all day suckers, musk sticks etc etc etc. Totally delectable!

To finish off here are some images of my own most affordable piece of art.

It cost $0 and is from the Gallery Of Rain and only appears on the wall outside my bedroom after soaking downpours.

My favorite thing to wake up to!

Sometimes I call it Camel Head but after a night of thunder when lightening zig zags horizontally across the sky, I call it Hanoi Dragon

NOTE……After perusing the derrieres by Vuong Van Thao and Doan Hoang Lam, the reader may insinuate that this writer has a bum fetish.

This is not true!