KVT – The Affordables: Part Three – The Tried and True: Hanoi-Ans Plus One

KVT salivates over works by a few of the well known locals that were on the walls-or shelves-at Manzi

But first a welcome, cool digression

TUESDAY MORNING EARLY WAS A TRI MINH TYPE SYMPHONY

At 5.30 a crescendo of perfect pitch crickets thrilled the air for 30 minutes with the sort of chorusing you wish you could store in a bottle and occasionally ease open the stopper and let escaping chirrupping envelope you with memories of scented summer dawns.

Abruptly at 6 the crickets surrendered their instruments to the drone of air conditioners from houses with too few windows to throw open to early mornings. They hummed underneath trills and cheeps of mountain birds whose ancestors had managed to escape desperate cages and naturalize in patches of urban green.

At 6.30 a breeze eddied up the alley and fat drops of warm rain plished on leaves, plashed onto orange tiles and plumped a watery tympani that would have been too perfect had a cello sang an accompaniment to the soaring solo of a deliriously free, red whiskered bulbul

For those who missed it all here’s a track from a Tri Minh’s album

[youtube width=”700″ height=”393″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5_X1B0lRRw[/youtube]

All of the above, in a roundabout way, leads me into the wiles and charms of art work at the very impressive Manzi/Workroom 4 AFFORABLE ART extravaganza (OK OK! I know the doors closed yesterday on the plethora of nicely collectable stuff inside but I’m sure that if you approach the Manzi/4 folk they’ll give you a private peek at stuff that may catch your eye below)

In particular, like me, you may fall for the very gorgeous nudes by very famous Ha Manh Thang that are ridiculously (that is cheaply) priced.

Pair one of Ha Manh Thang’s black and whites with Doan Hoang Lam’s colored beauty and you have a set to be proud of

Phuong Linh of Nha San fame had a couple of very, very cool and refreshing line studies in clear morning sky blue that are as delicate as Delft pottery

Pham Ngoc Duong had a show stopper with a small work that is called desire. It is as desirable as any of the lingam that, pre-earthquake, punctuated the uneven streets of old Kathmandu and which, each morning, appeared out of the mists garlanded with orange chrysanthemums, the glans brushed by hundreds of wet fingers

In the image below a photographer is reflected in a proper attitude of adoration

My extra special favorite sculptor, Luong Van Viet, who recently had a world beater of large steel works at Heritage Space in My Dinh, presented two extra special steel miniatures. One, titled HELL, was an engrossing piece in a Marie Antoinettish sort of way- if one’s mind wanders into French capital punishment territory (so effectively used to decapitate thousands of Indochine dissidents pre 1954).

Nguyen Nghia Cuong who always presents provocatively has two of his distinctive works in the show that are as desirable and potent as those box pieces he displayed at Goethe a couple of years ago or his pieces that pop up at art museums throughout the world

A lot liked a trio of lamps shaded by Vu Kim Thu’s obsessional doodlings that have led her on exploratory trips to paper making and paper using centers throughout Asia. One collector who selects whimsical highlights was impressed enough to buy one.

A set of pyrographic 3D triangles by Ngo Van Sac were so popular that they just about flew out the front door to a new Hanoi-an home, though I rather like this negative woodcut which I think is one of the best pieces I’ve seen of his nicely prolific output.

The PLUS ONE in the title of this article is Nguyen Manh Hung, once an Hanoi-an but now a Saigon-ese and one of the pinnacles of success of the Vietnamese art world. If you manage to get one of the studies from his satirical car series then you have got a run- away winner to start -or to add to- your serious collection

I began with a hint of Tri Minh, at his most cool, in the air, and thus remained most of the day.

Tomorrow: PART FOUR AND FINAL: THE BLOW-INS