KVT – Sculpture to Inspire at Manzi

KVT gives his imagination free rein and also quenches his thirst

There’s a real winner at Manzi……Thai Nhat Minh who has gripped my imagination with his negative space sculptures that fit snugly into Manzi’s windows.

They are referenced from birds’ wings and are truly captivatingly beautiful in their site specific flights. No need to elaborate as the artist’s statement is eloquent enough

Viewers with an iota of imagination can’t help but take a few wow breaths as they take in the reflective wings while inside the café area

And most definitely from the outside street and side alley

At present one of the world’s most famous outdoor sculpture exhibitions is along a coastal path between two beaches near Bondi, Sydney…click here for images of the best of this year’s Sculpture by the Sea. My point is that Thai Nhat Minh’s concept would also be a huge crowd puller if he was able to make a site specific flight path of reflective wings heading over the cliffs and dipping towards the rolling Pacific. Perhaps the artist could apply to the Sculpture Walk management body for funding to take part in the event as he has a grand concept at the ready.

I have a friend who owns a vineyard and every year as the fruit ripen, flocks of rosella parakeets descend en masse to create havoc and try to rip the bunches to shreds . A couple of Minh’s double side reflective hawk wing sculptures suspended above the vines would certainly keep the vandals away.

While imagining this scenario I also imagined a flight of myriad Minh’s wing shapes descending down a mountain slope, over and through forests. What a spectacular installation that would be and would even make the hearts of Christo and Jeanne Claude go green with envy.

It’s not the first time that the artist has utilized bird shapes in his work and a past installation was indeed a beauty

And his recent Manzi summer interlude with a flock of rutting papier mache animals was whimsical, very funny, and stirring.

I first came across the sculptures of Khong Do Tuyen in 2011 when the artist was very effectively marrying small blocks of wood with bands of metal

At another show between locals and internationals I was impressed with the constricting imprisoning of a wooden shape in metal rope

Later still the artist progressed to binding up organic shapes with rope and cord into cocoons, allowing us to question what type of animals might be going to emerge from these alluring chrysalides

Now in the upstairs section of Manzi we see a dramatic progression to organic cocoons wrapped in metal, seemingly precariously balanced on charred wooden blocks

In another room is what can only be a maquette for a much larger version designed for a towering indoor foyer of outdoor square. The loosely woven metal cocoons suspended on high tension wire would indeed be spectacular. In the space at Manzi, between chairs, the installation is a trifle lost

Hoang Mai Thiep is one of those sculptors whose work invariably impresses and his collection of cast aluminum portraits mounted in wooden boxes is an eye catcher

The reference point for the extensive work is a rural family tree and one assumes that it also references a family altar or ancestor room and that the empty boxes may be for family members still alive and kicking, or perhaps for those members who are wandering souls….their facial representations perhaps lost to history when they disappeared, say, as human detritus during the war or during the purges or migratory evacuations that preceded and followed. The installation provides a lot of meat for thought.

Being a genealogical survey the installation may never be complete. Another nice artist statement accompanies the work

I like the way that the artist allows for the work to be installed according to site requisites, functions and sizes. It can be a random grouping, a formal frieze, even a floor mounted pagoda as I once witnessed in an Agent Orange installation

Thiep’s new work is a big departure from the smooth and flowing pieces I’ve enjoyed in the past

Now we get to Pham Thai Binh who has seemingly made the most dramatic leap forward from the figurative to the semi abstract.

He crept into my line of sight a couple of years ago when I first went to see the Muong Cultural Center just outside Hoa Binh town, just after it opened. Thiep’s pigs up a pole were a huge delight highlighted against jungle, mountains and sky

As were a very funny yet empathetic look at some mountain minority people at the Art Museum in 2013.

In 2014 I’m glad that Binh has kept that fabulous sense of humor and whimsy intact with what I interpret are flights of soaring kites silhouetted against the sun

It’s a bit like going to the grassy banks of the Red River Dyke across the Long Bien Bridge on a sunny, windy when the kite flying season is in full swing and hundreds of adult males are enjoying themselves as they pretend that they are helping the hundreds of kids who are anxious to get hold of the kite strings. When you lie back on the grassy slopes and look up the sun pours forth in glory between and through the shapes. Gorgeous days!

And when the kites are reflected in Thai Nhat Minh’s bird wings, the effect is just spectacular

Binh’s concept could be made into a huge abstract kite series that would look stunning in a host of architectural places…and definitely if suspended high up outside at night, lit from above

Wonderful stuff!

Finally a piece about designer Pham Dam Ca who segued the whole exhibition into an understandable whole by the curator Nguyen Anh Tuan

‘The participation of Pham Dam Ca brought graphical solution for the showcase of the sculptures. They aren’t just present with the auxiliary function for the sculptures. The graphic language of Dam Ca goes along with the works in the spirit of a specialized graphic solution for the art exhibition, which continued to develop from New Form exhibition I (2013). The shapes-arrays-lines, which were expressed in the logo of the project in phase I, are now dissected to intentionally independent fragmented segments and pieces. This is a concise expression in visual and graphic language in parallel to the development of sculpture form and space.’

Now it was time to take a break with one of Manzi’s famous cool guava juices

Which we drank sitting under Khong Do Tuyen’s suspended cocoons because It was a casually comfortable place to discuss the exhibition and to also cogitate on the other eclectic sculptures for sale scattered throughout Manzi’s shop space and nooks and crannies. Some of the bits and pieces are by artists in the exhibition above and usually at refreshing prices….. but I’ll let you decide which ones.

My apologies to artists and curator if I’ve diverged too radically from your intent!…..

Finally, huge thanks to the lovely folk from Denmark who continue to financially support developing art practices in Vietnam

ROLL ON NEW FORM SCULPTURE PART THREE