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(CPV) – An exhibition titled “Venus in Vietnam” will take place on Wednesday, October 3rd, at the Goethe Institute in Hanoi.
The exhibition includes installation and sculptural works by Vu Dan Tan and recent pieces by Nguyen Nghia Cuong focusing on female iconography and sexuality. The exhibition compares and contrasts the works of two Hanoi artists a generation apart.
The exhibition marks the third anniversary of Vu Dan Tan’s death, an extraordinary artist who is considered one of the leading artists of Vietnam’s post-Doi Moi scene.
The exhibition features works by Vu Dan Tan (1946 -2009) that have never been shown in Vietnam: Delicate cardboard suits and miniature installations of female figures in glass-lidded cigarette boxes. They represent two important series of Vu Dan Tan’s works, the Venus and Fashion series. Some of these sculptures were exhibited in Germany (2001), and later included in major exhibitions in Japan, Holland and Singapore, but in Vietnam, they were known only to friends and other artists who dropped into “Salon Natasha” while Tan was working on them.
Vu Dan Tan whose multi-media cross-disciplinary practice broke new ground in the 1980s with its conceptual and playful use of found materials, is now recognized as a pioneer in Vietnamese and Southeast Asian contemporary avant-garde art. This exhibition offers access to a facet of his work still generally unknown in Vietnam.
The present exhibition showcases works focusing on female iconography and sexuality, and these two themes’ expanded meaning in the social and cultural context of late twentieth century-early 21st century Vietnam.
Vu Dan Tan’s key works of the last decade, juxtaposed with new works by Nguyen Nghia Cuong, together offer a so far little-explored but relevant perspective, in art history, on the role played by gender, sexuality and women in Vietnamese visual art of the turn of the century./.
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