Art Articles
VIETNAMESE MODERN ART: CHANGE, STAGNATION, POTENTIAL, STRATEGY
By Natalia Kraevskaia, Ph.D
March 30, 2000
The unprecedented shift in Vietnamese modern art after "doi moi" is widely
recognized (1). The emergence of new art forms and stylistic diversity, the recognition
of Vietnamese modern art by foreign critics and the public, the participation of
the artists in different international exhibitions and art projects abroad - all
these predicted the future flowering of art.
However, the first indications of some stagnation became obvious in the late 90's.
The analysis of the situation in other Asian countries shows similarities in some
decline of the development of modern art in the countries with insufficient government
patronage and the absence of a local art market (2).
In order to work out a strategy which can help overcome the problems, let's first
point out these negative aspects:
1. The abyss between the traditional and modern experimental and conventional became
imperceptible and the striking contrasts in the art scene of the middle 90's turned
to a more flat surface. Even the opposition of two types of exhibitions - the modern
and those inherited from the pre-"doi moi" times - was transformed to
a co-existence. Many modern exhibitions lacked a search for new ideas and forms
of representation and became more boring than so called "traditional"
art;
2. The artists' self-limitation, a fear to overstep the borders of the ordinary
and to taste the new is very common these days. It's often accompanied by the artists'
equivocation in the face of government institutional control, but those complaints
serve sometimes as excuses for a lack of curiosity and of original ideas;
3. Innovations are rare. They can be bright and outstanding but often are not recognized
by the art community itself. High aestheticism is appreciated more than conceptualism
though the latter is the main trend in world contemporary art where the aesthetic
principles have been dislodged by an urge towards an understanding of self, where
art is not simply a skill to depict, but rather the means to construct a personality,
to draw up an ethical, philosophical and aesthetic program (3). This is what Vietnamese
artists in general are lacking.
The obvious proof of this is installation art in Vietnam, with visual effects but
very representational, without profound symbolism or metaphoric content. The artists
take a topic or a theme for the concept which demonstrates their incomprehension
of installation art. This is explicable if you consider the lack of information
and knowledge and insufficient educational levels within the art community in Vietnam.
This fact was accentuated by Pham Cam Thuong and Luong Xuan Doan, in the excellent
essay in the book Young Artists of Vietnam. "Seen from a wider perspective,
the young artists in Vietnam are very different from the writers of their age in
the sense that they are not as intellectual and put less thought into their work.
They lack the latter's keen sense of awareness for philosophy."(4) I know that
this phrase as well as some others from the book made a couple of artists very angry,
but this is the bitter truth. Those in their 50's, 60's or 70's got a better education
and upbringing, but not those who would determine the future of modern art;
4. The best, well known and well established artists "plagiarize their own
lives, their creativity is based solely on their desire to reproduce themselves."
(5) Their art making turned to commodity production, which regularly supplies the
market with goods of approved quality;
5. The young generation has jumped to the same flow of copying the bestsellers and
composing a featureless crowd behind the names Cuong, Phuong and Phong;
6. The next, negative factor is the undoubted influence of the market which includes
mainly foreigners. It's not the rare curators, galleries or museum representatives
looking for innovative art, who form the market strategy, but the numerous foreigners
who consider art as a good investment or buy art to decorate their offices and guest
rooms.
Who are those foreigners who are buying art in Vietnam?
The first group are diplomats and business executives living in Vietnam. Their social
position and income in Vietnam is higher than in their own countries. Many have
hardly visited art exhibitions before and mostly had never (except the race art
collectors) bought art. Here in Vietnam their new higher social status oblige them
to satisfy certain requirements among which is art buying (I wouldn't use the word
"collecting" in this case), as it's considered a virtue. The lower prices
also encourage them to buy art.
The second group are the Europeans coming from Hong Kong and Singapore. They are
middle-class people who have just made some money in these countries or are nouveaux
riches.
Here I want to refer to the research done by the Norwegian anthropologist A.K. Naes
on the Vietnamese art community and art market (6). Her research is based on the
theory of P. Bourdieux (7) about judgements of taste, whose concept can be summarized
briefly as follows:
Judgements are based on social position as well as personal taste. Personal taste
is related to the social stratum to which one belongs. The higher class is characterized
by "economic capital" and "cultural capital" (good upbringing
and good education). The lack of "cultural capital" wouldn't allow them
to be considered upper class. Those with a high economic capital but without "cultural
capital" form the class of nouveaux riches which are not accepted by the upper
or upper-middle classes.
This category of people is usually describable as lacking taste.
The third group are tourists and they prefer ethno-kitsch art which has traces of
exoticism and orientalism. As Nora Taylor writes, "The market for Vietnamese
paintings is constructed on Western Orientalism prejudices." (8)
So not the State, not the Artists' Association but those foreigners dictate to the
artists what should be painted and this is very destructive.
The problem of the artist and money and the artist and the market are not specifically
Vietnamese and not new. They are universal and everlasting, reflected in the literature
of different countries and of different periods.
Thus, for example, the Portrait by Gogol, written 160 years ago, shows the image
of one Russian artist who did sell his talent for money and cheap popularity, but
when he tried to come back to his real art, his brush was powerless to break the
boundaries and cast the chains with which he had bound his hands.
We have taken a look at some negative aspects in the develop of modern Vietnamese
art.
But enriched by traditions and talents and with an established system of art education,
having developed an "open-door" policy, Vietnam has great potential and
even advantages if compared with some other Asian countries. Let us now examine
the major factors which are able to determine its future course (9):
1. The major factor to be considered is the institution of patronage which is central
in the rise, expansion or fall of art in every country throughout history.
Here are some examples (10):
- the rise of Realism and the expansion of Salon pictures in Europe were closely
allied to the emergence of large-scale bourgeois patronage;
- the flourishing of fine arts and architecture in Russia since the 18th century
can be explained by the tradition of patronage maintained from Peter I and Catherine
II;
- the development of experimental architecture in Germany during the first part
of the 20th century is the result of the enlightened governmental and industrial
patronage before 1930;
- the decline of sculpture in general is connected with the absence of patronage-less
public commissions.
Among the institutions of patronage the main sector is the state sector. The State
and governmental structures should be responsible for supporting art projects and
sponsoring major exhibitions. The limited budget for the arts is understandable
but the situation can be improved by its more proper distribution. The second question
here is who makes the decisions. According to AK Naes, the most influential group
in Vietnam, because of historical circumstances, has a lack of "high cultural
capital". (11) So in the present situation it's necessary to form a new type
of art administrator with a definite level of education.
The following strategies within the government sector are important as well:
- better education for art historians and art critics;
- the organization of symposiums, conferences such as this one and discussions on
art and strategies to put it on a more equal level with other Asian and Western
art;
- the collaboration with different institutions, private galleries and individuals
in art projects since the most exciting and important things happening now are within
the framework of the private sector;
- the development of exhibition and project exchanges on the international level
because there is a gap between local concepts and information and that of international
curators;
- the promotion of such forms of art which in the present situation can't be supported
by other art institutions, such as installation art, sculpture, video art, performance
and public art;
- new policies regarding top modern artists who are recognized abroad but who are
ignored in their own country.
The private sector of patronage includes:
1. Companies and banks, but they often purchase mediocre works and rarely sponsor
art events (in Vietnam);
2. The general public, including the middle and even higher class - in Vietnam in
general they don't purchase art. There is a financial reason for this and a social
one which is not less important - till now "high cultural capital" is
not central to the dominant group and wealthy people. Their leisure activities do
no include visits to museums, galleries and exhibitions (12). It's obviously necessary
to strengthen the educational program on arts. The Monday TV art hour is not sufficient.
The government art administrators should reinforce the role of media and museums
in educating the public.
In museums all over the world, community and educational programs are not less important
than collecting and exhibiting art though in Vietnam they do not exist at all.
Besides the other institutions the private galleries are or should also be an integral
part of the system for art promotion. Though in Vietnam most of the galleries or
those who call themselves galleries ignore this side. The people running these spaces
are not professionals.
To be different is not considered a great virtue in Vietnam - it's the same regarding
the galleries. It's surprising, but most of the artists have a fixed idea about
how a gallery should look. The difference even in outward appearance from their
ideal image wouldn't be respected by them. It proves once more that they have little
information about contemporary galleries outside of Vietnam. They normally don't
know and don't care about what the gallery does or should do except sell their paintings.
In that context when the artists themselves don't imagine that there can be diversity
in gallery types, when they lack the knowledge about gallery activity and do not
respect it, even ignore their own promotion, an attempt to monopolize the market,
which is normally not regarded as positive in other countries, can be successful
in Vietnam.
The relations of artists and gallery in Vietnam are also very specific.
The grouping of artists around a gallery on a conceptual basis, so typical for modern,
avant-garde, non-commercial art, doesn't exist in Vietnam. Obviously, mutual sympathy
is not sufficient to create a direction in art. Within modern Vietnamese art life,
the attempts by some galleries to promote the artists as a group failed since there
was not any conceptual basis and because galleries lose stimulus for promotion since
the artists are running from gallery to gallery in search for dollars.
Are Vietnamese artists ambitious? If yes, why don't they appreciate gallery promotion
of their art even at the international level? Are they mercantile? If yes, why would
they continue to give their works to a gallery which doesn't pay them after a sale?
Do they respect their own art? If yes, why do they place it in dozens of galleries
which devaluate it in the eyes of customers?
The galleries themselves don't always have principles. They usually wouldn't take
the risk of exhibiting young talented but not yet established artists. But after
the artist receives public attention, they hunt for the work.
I often hear from foreign galleries about their problems in dealing with Vietnamese
artists. The artists don't accept the western rate of 50% commission even in galleries
with an established system of promotion. Well researched and prepared exhibitions,
promotion of their work through press and other means is not in the field of their
vision. They are never thinking that by selling their works the gallery owner also
sells his own education, knowledge, charm and reputation.
The other factors playing a leading role in the development of modern art such as
art schools and the media are not within the scope of this talk. I only would like
to mention that the significant progress in the Hanoi Fine Arts University is visible
even for an outside observer. However, government support should be wider in educating
University graduates or young teachers abroad in such fields as new art media, art
history and art theory, art administration and management, and musicology.
The sphere of print or broadcast media also needs adequate attention from the government,
since it's the mission of the media to bring art to the people and to educate the
public, but the quantity and quality of art writers and art critics is not satisfactory
at present.
In this review, I allowed myself to speak in detail about the negative aspects within
the contemporary art scene not just because of the empty wish to criticize everything
and everybody but in order to work out the strategies to overcome the obstacles,
the strategies which can help Vietnamese contemporary art to take a place in the
international art scene according to its merits.
Notes
1. Ian Howard, "A Blossoming Tradition," Asian Art News, 1997, vol. 7,
number 1, pages 44-45; Duong Tuong , "A Tradition of the New," Asian Art
News, 1997, vol. 7, number 2, page 42; Neil Jamieson, "The Evolving Context
of Contemporary Vietnamese Painting," Cultural Representation in Transition:
New Vietnamese Painting (The Siam Society, Thailand, 1995), 14-27.
2. Robert Preece and Gridthiya Goweewong, "Cracking Beneath the Surface: an
Interview with Chatcha Puipia, Art Asia Pacific, 1999, issue 22, pages 72-73; Sang
Ye. Fringle, "Dwellers," Art Asia Pacific, 1997, issue 15, pages 74-77.
3. Andrici Erofeev, "Die Kunst der Nonkonformisten", Kunst im Verborgenen.
Nonkonformisten. Rusland 1957 - 1993 (Prestel, Munchen and New York, 1995), page
13.
4. Phan Cam Tuong and Luong Xuan Doan, "The Life of Artists in Vietnam,"
Young Artists of Vietnam (Fine Arts Publishing House, Hanoi, Vietnam, 1996), page
20.
5. Sang Ye. Fringle, ibid., page 76.
6. Anne Kristine Naes, "Art Distinctions in Today's Hanoi - a comparison between
a former colony and its colonisers," Hoved fagsstudentenes Arbok 2000 (Institute
of Anthropology, University of Oslo, Norway).
7. P. Bourdieux, Distinction - a Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984).
8. Nora A. Taylor, "Pho Phai and Faux Phais: The Market for Fakes and the Appropriation
of a Vietnamese National Symbol," Ethnos, 1999, vol. 64, issue 2, page 247.
9. Here I partly follow the scheme proposed in the article by the Thai art critic
and art educator Kamchorn Soonpongsri in "Thailand: Looking at the Past and
Future of Modern Art in Thailand," The Philip Morris Group of Companies ASEAN
Art Awards catalogue, 1998.
10. H. Arnason, A History of Modern Art, 3rd edition, Thames and Hudson, 1986, pages
23, 89, 185, 208, 210, 361, 369, 379, 563.
11. AK Naes, ibid.
12. AK Naes, ibid.
13. AK Naes, ibid.
Natalia Kraevskaia is the director of Salon Natasha in Hanoi.
This keynote speech was delivered at a symposium of contemporary Vietnamese art
organized at the Fine Arts Institute in Hanoi on March 30, 2000.
Reproduced by kind permission of the author.
Copyright© Natalia Kraevskaia, 2000.
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