KVT – A Courtyard in Yet Kieu

KVT uses a bit of historical whimsy and poetic license while on a visit to VFAU

In my last opinion piece I mentioned the sculpture garden that makes up the main courtyard of the Vietnam Fine Arts University-right behind its unprepossessing gates in Yiet Kieu Street- and to which, I guarantee, a visit on a quiet day will amaze you. I also opine that the courtyard will end up on quite a few tourist groups’ must visit sites.

On one side are three classical nudes….copies of very well known works which reminded me that not so long ago such wanton displays of male genitalia may not have been able to be so flagrantly displayed in the city. These classical works probably refer to the university’s original purpose when established by the French in 1925 as École Supérieure des Beaux Arts de l’Indochine, modeled on similar colleges set up in other French colonies and where its mainly French instructors followed a classical arts educational program.

After 1945 and its displacement to a safe zone during the freedom struggle against the French, under the direction of To Ngoc Van, the college was re-instituted at its original site in 1957 and became a University in 1981

To me, the sculpture courtyard suggests a flow away from classicism and French influence to the establishment of a Vietnamese identity in art. In my imaginative mind it uses a motif of French minimalist installation artist Daniel Buren, born 1938 -at about the time that the prickling and tickling of Vietnamese nationalism awoke in European consciousnesses-to suggest this flow that is still meandering and twisting and changing and tug-a-waring with and conservative dictates .

Now I’m a huge fan of Buren’s work and whenever I’m at the Louvre in Paris I always stop-a-while amidst his famous play on classicism and minimalism in a large courtyard.

Not that all Buren’s work is black and white, though stripes more than occasionally dominate…. as you can see by clicking here.

Installed around the paved garden in Yiet Kieu are examples of acceptable sculptures that have been executed since that glorious time of insurrection against the French, through the turbulent times of the American War, peace, famine, reconstruction, Doi Moi, market economies, and globalization

The sculpture courtyard at VFAU is a mighty fine place to drop into and the rest of the University complex is also worth an investigation.