Opening: Fri 07 Mar, 6 pm
Exhibition: 07 – 23 Mar 2014, 9 am – 7 pm
Woman’s Cinema – Film evening of the women: Sun 23 Mar, 6.30 pm
Goethe Institut
From Goethe Institut and Art Vietnam Gallery:
Women have been always active as artists but until nowadays they are less represented and have less visibility in the still male-dominated art world – on international level and also in Vietnam. Therefore the Goethe-Institut invited eight women-artists who are already well-known in the contemporary art scene to realize a project of their choice in the framework of an exhibition with the title “A Woman’s View”.
On March 7, the eve before International Womens‘ Day 2014 this exhibition will be opened at the Goethe-Institut: An impressive range of strong, original works.
The curator of this show, Suzanne Lecht, who as Art Director of Art Vietnam Gallery has decisively contributed to the development of contemporary art in Vietnam throughout more than 20 years and always had a special eye for female talents, emphasizes: “A Woman’s View” is meant to carve out space to celebrate and to examine the essence of the female spirit and the ways in which this spirit transmutes into art. This exhibition intends to honor women for who they are, what they do and how they view the world.“ Many of the artworks in this show are memory based – inspired by historical traditions, crafts and rituals and intimate familial musings.
The catalogue of the exhibition includes an essay by Natalja Kraevskaja about “A Shifting Platform with Traditional Accessoires – Views and Practice of Contemporary Women-Artists in Vietnam”. The art scholar, curator and founder of the legendary “Salon Natasha”, the first independent art space in Vietnam, highlights the specific features of each of the eight artists. In spite of the wide specter of attitudes, themes and aestetics, Natalja Kraevskaja finds a joint “femine touch”: The art works „are far from the masculine ideal of conquest, possession and power and are more about positioning self, transition of memories, repercussion and search of essence.“ A woman’s view, it seems, goes through the surface towards the deeper layers of reality.
The exhibition “A Woman’s View” presents the following artists and their works:
• Hanoi DocLab: Let Us Now Praise Famous Women. Single-channel video projection, ed. Nguyen Trinh Thi, 2013
• Nguyen Thi Chau Giang: Inside Us. Double side silk painting, 2014
• Nguyen Huu Tram Kha: The Metaphor. Installation with X-ray film plates, 2014.
• Nguyen Thi Chinh Le: The Guests. 12 bronze sculptures, 2014.
• Maritta Nurmi: keep your dreams like china in your hands. Ceramic Vase, 2014
• Oanh Phi Phi: Armor. Lacquer sculptural painting, 2014
• Dinh Thi Tham Poong: Side by Side. Triptique, lacquer painting, 2014.
• Vu Kim Thu: Floating Landscape. Sculpture / lamp, transparent plastic and Mino Washi paper, 2014
Hanoi DocLab: Let Us Now Praise Famous Women. Single-channel video projection, ed. Nguyen Trinh Thi, 2013
All artists will attend the opening and present their art works, introduced by Suzanne Lecht.
As a closing event of the exhibition, there will be a Women’s Cinema night on 23rd March with short films by film makers of Hanoi DocLab, moderated by Nguyen Trinh Thi.
More information about the artists and their works in “A Woman’s View”
By Suzanne Lecht , Curator, Art Director Art Vietnam Gallery
Dinh Thi Tham Poong, known for her highly patterned works on handmade Do paper turns her hand to a traditional Vietnamese medium and presents a lacquer triptych that examines intimacy and how our personal relationships provide a mirror into some of the deepest aspects of our own psyche. The artist explores the dialogue that is always unfolding between loved ones By painting in a way that highlights the overlap between her figures – a visual metaphor well-suited to the lacquer’s overlay technique – the work, Side by Side asks whether the question “where do you end and where do I begin is valid?”
Phi Phi Oanh, a Vietnamese artist born in America, also uses the lacquer medium but unlike the intimacy of Tham Poong’s work, Phi Phi uses her outsider perspective to give us a detached view of identity. The Armor, a lacquer torso combined with a mask and pith helmet, gives physical form to the armor we all wear in order to keep our singular identities intact in a world of often conflicting and contradictory ideologies. Phi Phi has recently received international acclaim and her monumental lacquer work Specula was presented in the 2013 Singapore Biennale.
Another outsider’s view is presented by Maritta Nurmi, an artist from Finland, residing in Vietnam for over 20 years. Perhaps the most decidedly feminine, a life size vessel, a classic female form, depicts on its surface a map of the artists interior life, recording her triumphs and sorrows. The works title, keep your dreams like china in your hands, suggests that just as her clay vessel, the artist has emerged from a trial by fire, strong and fragile, sad and joyous with all her aspirations intact.
Nguyen Thi Chau Giang, in her signature works on silk, continues her exploration of how to maintain a balance between her public and private lives. Inside of us is an innovative work painted on two sides, which by using the image of a woman and a dragon, each one dominant on opposite sides, accentuates that eternal struggle of how to maintain a balance between the two poles of masculine feminine.
Quietly emerging on the art scene. Nguyen Huu Tram Kha’s installation, “The Metaphor” is both haunting and transformative. It consists of hundreds of x-ray film strips woven together to create what appears like a blanket of memory. The feminine construct of story telling is subtle and only hauntingly exposed, for while it seems that so much is being revealed through the x-ray images, so much remains eerily absent.
The installation of bronze sculptures by Zen Buddhist sculptor/painter/poet Nguyen Thi Chinh Le reflects the poetry she finds in the empty spaces in one’s life. Her work of 12 bronze sculptures, The Guests, sitting at a table for a seemingly imaginary meal, recalls the enigma of the stories she overheard as a girl, the stories she now continues to tell. The sculptures, both delicate and sturdy, are infused with the artist’s nascent wisdom. She reminds viewers to see the empty void in front of the assembled guests – here sits our reminiscences of time past as well as the anticipation of what is to come.
Interestingly, of all the artists profiled here, Vu Kim Thu’s Lines and Light work presents the most removed perspective. Inspired by a residency in Udatsu, Japan, Thu maps a landscape of the village’s historical roofs and houses onto a lantern made of Japanese Washi paper. Known for her intricate, delicate drawings, Thu succeeds in mapping a birds eye view of a culture not her own but one that could be. Reminiscent of the roofs of her ancient Hanoi, the artist transcends cultural borders and creates a universal work of art. As the film maker Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”
Nguyen Trinh Thi, founder and director of Doclab, an independent center for documentary film and video art at the Goethe Institut in Hanoi, presents a collaborative work made during Doclab workshop, Let Us Now Praise Famous Women, which explores various aspects of labor in Vietnam. The film is not meant to create an archetype of the contemporary working woman. Quite the contrary, it takes the time to celebrate the individuality of each of its subjects. Let Us Now Praise Famous Women reminds viewers of their own basic humanity in the face of an ever-more industrialized society. Video work is gaining ground in Vietnam and Trinh Thi is receiving international acclaim for her work. Thi’s recent work, “Unsubtitled”, a video work of life sized images projected on wooden cut-outs that uses the metaphor of eating to question freedom of expression, was presented in the Singapore Biennale 2013.
Source Hanoi Grapevine
