KVT – Bao and Identity @ L’espace
An artist named Bao has filled up available gallery space at L’Espace with pieces in a variety of mediums as he follows through on a theme to which lots of Vietnamese and Viet Kieu can relate.
As his PR states: Bao’s work is influenced by an exile – the time during which he lived outside of his home country – and his yearning for an identity then. Bao combines cultural and religious symbols of Vietnam and diverts them: lanterns, altars, old photographs. In this exhibition, he played particularly on the transparency of certain materials – plexiglass, glass, plastic films, spring roll wrappers – to make visible the distant, vague memories.
In some respects, I think that Bao has included a too much into his exhibition to make his point and the adage that in art often less is best may have proved true for him.
However if you have the time to explore the works you’ll find a lot in which to become engrossed.
His central piece is a wasps’ nest of molded transparent faces-though other viewers prefer to translate the installation as a face fruit hanging from a vine
My favorite installation is behind the main staircase which acts like old wooden shutters to conceal a large charcoal portrait on canvas that has been partially erased. I assume that this was a family matriarch
In reference to 1960/70 style video installations, the portrait is backed by small screens that play continuous loops of grainy home movies of community and family events in (I assume) a place in the Mekong Delta
This concept is continued on the front windows facing the street where two series of 50/60/70ies personal photographs are displayed.
Viewed from inside the gallery, the photographs have been deliberately antiqued and if you look carefully a face can be discerned-perhaps of the matriarch.
Original notations add a poignant touch for voyeurs like me
The concept is re-inforced, perhaps unnecessarily, on a side wall where period black and white images have been painted or collaged over.
The ancestral family altar has been nicely referenced on two plinths that frame the wasp nest
Two photographic prints on perspex are obvious addendums to the theme
The exhibition closes on July 7 and is well worth meandering through
| Kiem Van Tim is a keen observer of life in general and the Hanoi cultural scene in particular and offers some of these observations to the Grapevine. KVT insists that these observations and opinion pieces are not critical reviews. Please see our Comment Guidelines / Moderation Policy and add your thoughts in the comment field below. |
