These artists wrestle with public and private realms, trauma and modernity, individual and cultural memories. Psychic and physical transition is also indicative of Sài Gòn itself, a chameleon. Rapid change can be seen not only in centres such as Sài Gòn, Hà Nội and Huế, but throughout the countryside. This shift is reflected in the changing identities of artists, cultural institutions, and the general public. Việt Nam ’s artists and organizers open up sites of reflection and engagement, ways to negotiate brave new worlds, ways to be at home in the world.
All ‘Diaries of a Traveling City’ and Sàn Art images courtesy of Zoe Butt and Hà Thúc Phu Nam.
1. In May 2008, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Việt Nam and Singapore, two exhibitions were launched in Singapore: ‘Post Đổi-Mới: Contemporary Vietnamese Art After 1990s’, at the Singapore Art Museum (http://www.singart.com) and ‘Việt Nam!: From Myth to Modernity’ at the Art and Civilizations Museum (http://www.acm.org.sg). Related programing included an international symposium on the development of Vietnamese contemporary art.
2. For more on the development of the Vietnamese economy over the last several years, see the following articles: Keith Bradsher, ‘Vietnam’s Roaring Economy is Set for World Stage’, New York Times, ‘World Business’, 25 October 2006; Clay Chandler and Sheridan Prasso, ‘Vietnam VROOM: Asia’s Second-Fastest Economy Takes the Global Stage’, Fortune Magazine, 21 November 2006; Michael C. Mohnihan, ‘The Ho Chi Minh City Statement’, Reason Magazine, 26 February 2008; Martha Ann Overland, ‘Vietnam’s Troubled Economy’, TimeMagazine, 9 June 2008.
3. ‘General Council approves Việt Nam ’s membership’, 7 November 2006, Press Release, World Trade Organization,http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres06_e/pr455_e.htm; ‘Việt Nam Joins WTO,’ World Trade Organization, 11 January 2007,www.wto.org/english/news_e/news07_e/acc_vietnam_11jan07_e.htm.
4. For more on globalization and its impact on contemporary art, please refer to Charlotte Bydler, The Global ArtWorld Inc.: On the Globalization of Contemporary Art, Uppsala University, Uppsala, 2004.
5. Art historian Nora Taylor has written extensively on contemporary art in Việt Nam: Nora Annesley Taylor, Painters in Hanoi, University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, 2004; Nora A. Taylor, ‘Whose Art Are We Studying? Writing Vietnamese Art History From Colonialism to the Present,’ from Studies in Southeast Asian Art: Essays in Honor of Stanley J. O’ Connor, Southeast Asia Program Publications, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 2000.
6. L’Espace, British Council, and Goethe Institut all provide language instruction, and have archival holdings. For more information on L’Espace:http://www.ambafrance-vn.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=265.
7. For more information on Goethe Institut:http://www.goethe.de/ins/vn/han/enindex.htm.
8. British Council Vietnam: http://www.britishcouncil.org/vietnam. The British Council also supports Hanoi Grapevine, a website and group e-mail list which features ongoing updates on cultural events in Hanoi and Sai Gon:www.hanoigrapevine.com.
9. Describing the avant-garde art scene, critic and painter Joe Fyfe notes: ‘The Vietnamese government has not been friendly to this work and the artists have felt more comfortable with the extra ring of protection that an international organization provides.’ Joe Fyfe, ‘Report from Hanoi, Rienke Enghardt and Tran Trung Tin at Art Vietnam, Hanoi’, artcritical.com, November 2006,http://www.artcritical.com/fyfe/JFHanoi.htm.
10. For more on the development of contemporary art in Việt Nam please refer to Natalia Kraevskaia, Từ Hoài Cổ Hướng Sang Miền Đất Mới (From Nostalgia Towards Exploration), Kim Đông Publishing House, Hanoi, 2005) and Nguyễn Nhu Huy, ‘Asian Art Report’, Arthub magazine:http://www.nhuhuy.com/htmls/weblogs_detail_en.php?logid=228&f=1&mon=11&ye=2006, 3 December 2006.
11. Ryllega Gallery: http://www.ryllegahanoi.com
12. Đông Sơn Today Foundation: http://dongsontoday.org
13. Đào Anh Khánh’s website: http://www.daoanhkhanh.com
14. Art Vietnam is one of the most prominent commercial spaces in Ha Noi, is run by director Suzanne Lecht — a Texan who has lived in Việt Nam for over fifteen years. Website: http://www.artvietnamgallery.com. Interview with Suzanne Lecht, 3 May 2006.
15. Suffusive Gallery: http://www.suffusiveart.com
16. Studio Thơ: http://www.studiotho.com
17. Maison des Arts: http://maisondesartshanoi.com
18. Việt Art Centre: www.vietartcentre.vn.
19. Several diasporic Vietnamese artists call Viet Nam home, including Tiffany Chung, Hà Thúc Phu Nam, Đỉnh Q. Lê, Jun Nguyễn-Hatsushiba, Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn, Phi Phi Oanh Nguyễn (phiphiblackbox.com), Rich Streitmetter-Tran (diacritic.org), and among others.
20. Galerie Quynh: www.galeriequynh.com
21. Himiko Visual Café: http://www.himikokoro.com
22. Nguyễn Nhu Huy’s website: http://www.nhuhuy.com
23. Sue Hadju and Motoko Uda have run a little blah blah over the past few years: http://albbsaigon.blogspot.com
24. IDECAF is also known as The Institute of Cultural Exchange with France. The site has an exhibition space, library and screening room.
25. ‘le mois de l’image’: http://www.lemoisdelimage.net/2008/index.php?l1=en
26. Sàn Art: www.san-art.org
27. Special thanks to Zoe Butt for her notes and images of the ‘Diary of a Traveling City’ exhibition, as well as the organizers of Sàn Art: Đỉnh Q. Lê, Tiffany Chung, Hà Thúc Phu Nam, Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn, and Chương-Đài Võ.
28. ‘Nhạc Vàng’, or yellow or golden music, are often love songs with slow tempos written in Southern Việt Nam before 1975. This music was banned in Việt Nam by the government for containing potentially subversive content.
29. For more on memory, nostalgia, trauma and representation refer to Tài Hồ Huệ-Tâm (ed.), The Country of Memory: Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam, California University Press, Berkeley, 2001.
30. Nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire described the flâneur as ‘a botanist of the sidewalk’, a figure that was crucial in understanding modern life on the street, a detached observer. Marxist Walter Benjamin expanded this idea, noting that the bourgeois gentleman-stroller/intellectual was coolly critical of capitalist spectacle: ‘the flâneur is someone abandoned in the crowd. In this he shares the situation of the commodity’ (1938). Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in The Era of High Capitalism, trans. Harry Zohn, Verso, London, 1983. Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, Belnak Press, Cambridge, 2002. Other academics have problematized the figure of the flâneur for its masculinist (as well as Eurocentric) assumptions, including scholars Nancy Troy, Janet Wolff, among others.