KVT and the Superb Realism Double Banger of NDHV at Manzi

CHAPTER 1……DEAD THINGS:

A couple of years ago I had one of those birthdays that end in 0 that relatives feel should be celebrated, so when I was asked what I wanted as a gift I jokingly said one of the little art works by Nguyen Dinh Hoang Viet that are on exhibition at a local gallery… particularly the fish on newspaper and the cicada exoskeleton on card board

AND I RECEIVED BOTH ON THE BIG DAY
The gallery director was ecstatic about the young artist’s work and introduced me to his first series- super real war machines, sometimes on newspaper- that were big time favorites with art connoisseurs

The artist was a prime selection in the 2015 Grapevine Art Selection where his fish, crabs, and tanks featured

Then at Manzi’s affordable art show he allowed them to have 2 of his dead rats which were, according to me, BEST IN SHOW

Now MANZI has mounted a double banger… downstairs are Viet’s dead animals and upstairs his experimental new works

A lot, like me, can’t get enough of his dead animals which critic Ilza Burnett once described as ‘the series of extraordinarily detailed, almost hologram-like, hyper realistically painted images’ …. While others are a bit repulsed.

I like to remind those weak stomached viewers of some other, much older dead animal masterpieces owned by world famous galleries with two 16th and 17th century fish examples below by Frans Snyder and Clara Peeters

With a couple more featuring dead birds below… but perhaps it was the inclusion of a live animal that eased some of the quease

Even Rembrandt got into the action with sides of dead beef

Which Chaim Soutine used as an inspiration in the1920ies

Perhaps some viewers of Viet’s dead animals may ponder if he is presenting us with symbolisms and illusions that were important elements of European food paintings from 1400 to 1800 as outlined in this essay from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

One could say that Viet’s dead animals at Manzi are a celebration of fish, fowl and geckos

and some have amusing, sometimes personified titles, or empty speech bubbles
Below in order are HANDS UP; BALLET; SLEEP; SILENCEOF THE FISH, and ?

The gecko features again upstairs as a fleeting visitor

and was also in a recent series of the dead

Now a few general images of one of those art shows that is sure to mostly please- but sometimes puzzle.

CHAPTER 2: ILLUSIONARY

The new series upstairs was introduced in PR about the exhibition with:

And a proportion of people probably perceived that it was a photography show

But no….look closer and you discover that it’s rather cunning and beautiful hyper real painting…even down to a drop of water on paper

And if you go back to the gecko on a white background you could assume that it might have escaped from that crack in the wall next to it

One of these hyper real bits featured a small kid’s drawing (perfectly reproduced even down to the pin that is used to put it on display) which made a few scoff and utter ‘my kid could have done that!’

Fat Chance!

One wall has an array of what look like pieces torn from notebooks with maths formula, music notation, scratch outs and a few crumples

JUST WHAT WILL NGUYEN DINH HOANG VIET COME UP WITH NEXT?

I can hardly wait.

SEE MORE OF THE ARTIST’S OUTPUT HERE

There’s a nice catalogue of Viet’s work available – just like his art work it’s beautifully presented.