vietnamese anti-art and anti-vietnamese artists ... anti-art and anti-vietnamese artists: ... those...

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108 Journal of Vietnamese Studies, Vol. 2, Issue 2, pps. 108–128. ISSN 1559-372x, electronic ISSN 1559-3738. © 2007 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/jvs.2007.2.2.108 nora a. taylor Vietnamese Anti-art and Anti-Vietnamese Artists: Experimental Performance Culture in Hà Nbi’s Alternative Exhibition Spaces I n the spring of 2005, after spending the academic year in Hà Nbi con- ducting research on the youngest generation of Hà Nbi’s artists, I pre- sented a talk about performance and video art to the scholars at the Vi0t Nam Institute of Culture and Art [Vi0n Nghiên C+u Ven Hóa Ngh0 Thu=t]. Although I was clear at the onset that what I was sharing with my audience was “raw data” and firsthand observation rather than interpreta- tion, after viewing my pictures of various art events and happenings over the course of the year, several scholars rose to inform me that my research mate- rial could not be considered “art,” and that these artists, furthermore, were not “Vietnamese.” When I asked them to expand on their comments, they told me that performances and installations were not traditional and were ugly, besides, and that the artists who created them only copied from the West and therefore could not be considered “true Vietnamese artists.” I was not surprised by their reaction. On the contrary, I have come to expect such comments, for they confirm many of my own assumptions about the differ- ences between the cultural opinions of Vietnamese art critics and those of outsiders, including myself. 1 These comments also raise the issue of the relative notion of taste and artistic value. We cannot assume that what one might consider “art” in one context is necessarily considered “art” in JVS0202_03.qxd 6/18/07 6:22 PM Page 108

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Page 1: Vietnamese Anti-art and Anti-Vietnamese Artists ... Anti-art and Anti-Vietnamese Artists: ... those of the Dada movements of World War I and II and the “anti-art” move-ments of

108

Journal of Vietnamese Studies, Vol. 2, Issue 2, pps. 108–128. ISSN 1559-372x, electronic ISSN1559-3738. © 2007 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct allrequests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University ofCalifornia Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp.DOI: 10.1525/jvs.2007.2.2.108

n o r a a . ta y l o r

Vietnamese Anti-art and Anti-Vietnamese Artists:Experimental Performance Culture in Hà Nbi’sAlternative Exhibition Spaces

In the spring of 2005, after spending the academic year in Hà Nbi con-ducting research on the youngest generation of Hà Nbi’s artists, I pre-

sented a talk about performance and video art to the scholars at the Vi0tNam Institute of Culture and Art [Vi0n Nghiên C+u Ven Hóa Ngh0

Thu=t]. Although I was clear at the onset that what I was sharing with myaudience was “raw data” and firsthand observation rather than interpreta-tion, after viewing my pictures of various art events and happenings over thecourse of the year, several scholars rose to inform me that my research mate-rial could not be considered “art,” and that these artists, furthermore, werenot “Vietnamese.” When I asked them to expand on their comments, theytold me that performances and installations were not traditional and wereugly, besides, and that the artists who created them only copied from theWest and therefore could not be considered “true Vietnamese artists.” I wasnot surprised by their reaction. On the contrary, I have come to expect suchcomments, for they confirm many of my own assumptions about the differ-ences between the cultural opinions of Vietnamese art critics and those ofoutsiders, including myself.1 These comments also raise the issue of therelative notion of taste and artistic value. We cannot assume that whatone might consider “art” in one context is necessarily considered “art” in

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another.2 However, rather than engaging in a discussion over what is “true”Vietnamese art, here I would like to examine the questions of who gets todefine Vietnamese art and how artists are engaged in defining art in thename of Vietnam.

In part, my research is about examining artists’ relationship to authorityand the extent to which artists manipulate their own image and identity inthe process of developing an artistic community. In other words, I am inter-ested in the question of whether artists are responsible for defining whatVietnamese art is and the degree to which they allow other forces to deter-mine their own status. In a society in which government still exerts controlover many individuals’ livelihoods, how do artists fare in their own strugglesfor self-determination? Is any artist who goes against a government’s defini-tion of art automatically considered “experimental” and “marginal?” Is anyart made outside of the mainstream necessarily “experimental”? In this arti-cle, I will argue that some Vietnamese artists are not only trying to create atype of “anti–Vietnamese mainstream art” (not necessarily anti-Vietnameseart), but they are also trying to experiment with new places for art, and thatthe location for exhibiting art has become as essential to the definition ofexperimental art as the form. Performance art lends itself easily to experi-mentation because it can take place anywhere; I noticed during my recentstay in Hà Nbi that artists whose work many would consider “experimental”or “marginal” to mainstream tendencies also choose to exhibit in “marginal”sites, that is, locations that are outside of the usual galleries and museums.Rather than attempt to change the system from within and exhibit contro-versial works alongside their more conventional colleagues, these artistsexhibit on the periphery of the known art world.3 The result is that they bothdeflect attention and invite it.

A case in point can be found at the first recorded performance of thistype. In 1995, a young artist, Ainh Anh Quân, staged a performance in theVen Mi!u [Temple of Literature] compound in Hà Nbi. He hung strawmats on trees and proceeded to paint thick lines on them with red and blackpaint. He then stationed himself on a mat on the ground and waited, as heput it, “until the cops came.”4 He claims to have waited three days before theauthorities made him leave. The event created a stir in the Hà Nbi art worldat the time, for until then, no artist had dared to stage such a public display,

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nor had any artist tried what is commonly known in the West as perform-ance art.5 Since Ainh Anh Quân’s performance, an “alternative art scene”has been growing in Hà Nbi, made up of artists who have pushed art out ofthe galleries and into semipublic places. While some critics have seen therise of conceptual and performance art in Hà Nbi as an inevitable evolutionon par with other forms of “progress” in Vietnam, such as economic andsocial development,6 in this article I will argue that the alternative art scenein Hà Nbi is, at best, a moderately successful attempt to break from theestablishment; a provocation, a challenge created by artists to test the author-ities on their own knowledge and perception of art. Young artists in Hà Nbiare trying to break new ground in the popular art scene, and performancedoes offer them an attention-grabbing device to attract an audience. But onemay wonder how effective it really is. One might compare these artists tothose of the Dada movements of World War I and II and the “anti-art” move-ments of wartime Europe, but in Vietnam the movement against “art” is alsoa movement against what is conventionally accepted as “Vietnamese.”

The History of Vietnamese Contemporary Art

Vietnamese contemporary art can be defined broadly as art that has beenmade since the latter decades of the twentieth century. It is most often asso-ciated with the 1990s surge in sales of paintings and the proliferation of pri-vately owned commercial galleries in Hà Nbi and H7 Ch5 Minh City.However, as some noted Vietnamese critics have observed, as elsewhere inthe international art world, one needs to make a distinction between mod-ern, contemporary, avant-garde, and experimental art.7 Contemporary art inVietnam is no longer simply art made in the present. It consists of the workof a generation of postwar artists who have embraced a universal language ofart, one that transcends local traditional styles, themes, and media. Itincludes many styles, including avant-garde, experimental, and modern.

Modern art emerged in the earlier part of the twentieth century, whenVietnamese artists learned Western oil painting techniques from visitingFrench teachers at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts d’Indochine [Indochina Schoolof Fine Arts], established in 1925.8 Writings on the colonial art school byVietnamese art critics and art historians have described it as the seed fromwhich national art grew, the place where artists developed their national

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pride and learned to use art as a tool for independence from the French.9

The painting styles that were subsequently adopted by Vietnamese artistshave been described by foreign and local art historians and artists as either aconvergence of two traditions, European and Asian, or a combination of tra-ditional and modern.10

After independence, an art school stationed with the Vi0t Minh revolu-tionary planning hideout in the hills of Vi0t Bcc north of Hà NCi trainedseveral dozen artists to travel with the army and sketch soldiers at work.Known as the Khóa Kháng Chi!n [Resistance Class], these artists createddrawings and paintings that contributed toward patriotic visions of Vietnam,including landscapes of the northern part of the country, the victory flagsafter the battle of Ai0n Biên PhF, women bearing arms, soldiers marchingin the forest, and the like. The creation of these images was often sponta-neous and improvised, but they had a lasting effect. Subsequent paintings,posters, stamps, and currency that depicted soldiers, the northern Vietnamesecountryside, and Hà Nbi became part of the visual culture associated withnationalism.

In the mid 1950s, when writers were challenging the Communist Party’spolicies regarding creative freedom, several artists began to withdraw fromnational arts organizations in order to pursue their own visions of what con-stitutes modern Vietnamese painting.11 But these artists emerged onto thepublic art scene only after the government instituted its A%i M&i [Renova-tion] policy in the late 1980s. They otherwise stayed sequestered in theirhomes. In addition, during the decades of war, artists in the northern part ofthe country had little access to art supplies and often relied solely on gov-ernment subsidies to create art. In exchange, the government dictated thekind of art that could be seen by the general public, allowing only nationalart exhibitions that were juried and otherwise controlled by government offi-cials. In the southern part of the country, artists were more free to exhibittheir works in private galleries and sell paintings to an international clien-tele. They were able to earn an income from the sale of their paintings andtherefore enjoyed greater economic and political freedom than their north-ern colleagues. Still, the themes depicted by southern artists were largely“patriotic” as well, in the sense that they nearly always attempted to capturethe essential qualities of Vietnam through images of the local countryside,

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women, or traditional household objects. Some artists experimented withabstract art, but most of them catered to the demand for “pretty” pictures ofVietnam.12 Although two competing visions of Vietnam were created duringthis time of division between north and south, a shared perception of thedefinition of Vietnamese art as one that represents the landscape and peopleof Vietnam is evident in the paintings made at the time.

The idea that “Vietnamese art” could be defined by the content of the artperhaps originated during the colonial period, when artists learned to rep-resent Vietnam in the form of landscapes and portraits of ethnic Viet-namese. This practice continued both north and south, as both realistic andidealized views of Vietnam were marketed to tourists or government agen-cies. In the 1990s, pictures of Vietnam were exhibited in commercial gal-leries that had recently been permitted to open as part of the lifting ofrestrictions on the operation of private businesses under A%i M&i. Depic-tions of local temples, scenes from the countryside, and portraits were col-orfully rendered to flaunt the country’s beauty, but the artists were motivatednot by government regulations dictating the content of art or by a desire topromote patriotic images but rather by a desire to counter the officially dic-tated views of the nation and create images that celebrated the country’stourist sites, local traditions, and ancient heritage—in other words, Viet-nam’s precommunist and precolonial past.13 In the early 1990s, when askedto explain the meaning of their works, artists regularly articulated their ownindividual feelings about their country and their personal views of their envi-ronment rather than reciting party slogans or official decrees on art.14 Yet notuntil very recently have the images and subject matter meant to evoke orrepresent “Vietnam” changed. This change is largely due to the increase inthe variety of individual expressions and gradually bolder moves by artists touse their bodies and personal ideas as material for making statements abouttheir country. Themes that are generally understood as representing artists“feelings” are becoming more commonplace.

Performance Art in Vietnam

Ainh Anh Quân’s initial foray into the world of performance art encouragedother artists to follow suit. His act of bravura told artists that the authori-ties would not necessarily “punish” them, and that the public might be

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interested, even if only out of sheer curiosity. In 1995, soon after Ainh AnhQuân’s performance, artist TrMKng Tân danced in a gallery space to afriend’s improvised music. More famously, Aào Anh Khánh, a formerpoliceman and well-known painter, paraded himself around Hoàn Ki!mLake, dressed in a loincloth and swinging his arms around like a mad manin the name of art. He was quickly taken away by officials. TrMKng Tân didnot attract as much attention, no doubt because his performance took placein a private space.

Clearly, early performance art in Vietnam was considered quite radicaland different but was not yet taken seriously as “art.” No mention of theperformances of Ainh Anh Quân, Aào Anh Khánh, or TrMKng Tânappeared in local art journals. When art journals such as MY Thuut [FineArts] did discuss performance, it was usually under the “new media” labelof “performance-installation-video art” and described as a postmodern phe-nomenon, and the artists who practiced performance-video-installation artwere viewed as being of a new, twenty-first-century generation and veryavant-garde. These same articles often attached question marks to the move-ment, asking whether these art forms were appropriate for Vietnam, whetherthey were to be taken seriously, and whether the art-going public in Hà Nbiwas really ready for them. It took some ten years before artists could com-fortably stage performances as “exhibitions” rather than as spontaneous,seemingly ludicrous acts.

Indeed, until 2000, such performances were isolated events that tookplace clandestinely. Tr6n LMKng, for example, staged (and often videotaped)various performances in the countryside, far from the city. One such per-formance took place near coal mines: He “clothed” himself in cooked rice,having smothered the rice over his body with a liquid sugar, and positionedhimself on the black ground, calling his piece “Rice Man.” The whiteness ofhis rice-covered body stood in striking contrast to the dark earth, creating adramatic visual effect. Tr6n LMKng’s performance, like Ainh Anh Quân’s,was among the first to demonstrate that art could be made with little means.Tr6n LMKng has since taken a leading role in organizing performanceevents, which have become more programmed, scheduled, and planned.They increasingly take place in organized spaces and are recorded anddocumented.

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Since 2000, performance art has gained far more momentum than theskeptical critics may have anticipated in the 1990s. Even though they are stillnot regarded as “art” events by cultural officials and the general public, per-formances are now regular events and performance art has expanded thepossibilities for artists to make art.15 The proliferation of performances hasalso given rise to two kinds of performances. One still retains the originalspirit of the clandestine event, and the other comprises the multimedia stageproductions of Aào Anh Khánh, whose performances have evolved from hisearlier loin-cloth stunts to fully choreographed dances, complete with musi-cians and light shows. Aào Anh Khánh’s shows have received greater mediacoverage than most performance art in Vietnam and fall more under the cat-egory of spectacle, in both the English and the French sense, than the per-formance art of the 1960s experimental art tradition. Every year since 2003,he has staged what he calls a Aáo Xuân, a springtime re-spiriting show,which usually takes place around the T!t [Lunar New Year]. He often hiresperformers to chant, move, and play instruments on the stage. In 2006, hehired ethnic MM.ng to play gongs while he screamed, gesticulated, cried,and pranced about in a black cloth, his face painted green. When inter-viewed, he explains that he is trying to get in touch with primal humaninstincts. His shows make allusions to nature, with video screens projectingimages of bamboo groves, grassy fields, fire, rain, and dark forests, and theytake on ritualistic qualities. He moves around the stage as if in a trance, andthe audience is often mesmerized by the dazzling visual effects. Smokeblows onto screens, fireworks go off, moving images are displayed at the backof the stage while rhythmic drums and cymbals are heard overhead.

Aào Anh Khánh attracts huge crowds to his events. Art critics, however,are often baffled at his performances. As a Hà Nbi reporter asked, “But whatdoes it all mean?”16 Whether this art makes sense to viewers or not, Aào AnhKhánh does manage to bring in a loyal audience of onlookers. Perhaps theyare awed by the technical effects of the performance, perhaps they areintrigued by it as something beyond the realm of the ordinary. Regardless ofthe content or meaning of his performance, that he manages to attract a con-siderable number of viewers is significant enough.

Aào Anh Khánh’s productions are organized by the artist himself andtake place in his own home and studio in Gia Lâm, across the ChMKng

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DMKng Bridge from Hà Nbi. Occasionally, he is invited to perform else-where, such as L’Espace, the French cultural center in Hà Nbi, and veryrecently, as part of a collaborative project with Stephen Kaplowitz at theDance Theatre Workshop in New York City. L’Espace and other interna-tional cultural centers in Vietnam, such as the Goethe Institut. and theBritish Council, provide “diplomatic” spaces where artists can exhibit theirwork; French, British, and German program officers select local artists toexhibit in their spaces in the spirit of cultural exchange. Often, they chooseworks that may not be shown in commercial galleries or works by artists whoare not widely exhibited and therefore are less well known by the generalpublic. These program officers act as curators, selecting works for their con-tent or implied message. The choices are sometimes seen as politically moti-vated because the artists would not otherwise be given an opportunity by thegovernment to exhibit. In this way, these centers act as sponsors of “unoffi-cial” and potentially controversial art. Franz Xavier Augustin, director of theGoethe Institut since 2002, sees his role as one of allowing artists to expressthemselves outside of the boundaries controlled by their government. The“exchange,” in his view, is fair.

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F I G U R E 1 : Aào Anh Khánh performing at l’Espace in Hà Nô. i, June 26,

2005 (photograph by author).

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The Goethe Institut acts as a representative of Germany, as a Germancultural embassy that brings German culture to Vietnam through perform-ances, films, lectures, and exhibitions. The architectural space that it occu-pies in Hà Nbi is therefore not really Vietnam, and so the artists that exhibiton the grounds of the cultural center are not subject to the same scrutiny,the same eyes, and the same audience as the national museums and com-mercial galleries in Hà Nbi and H7 Ch5 Minh City. The paradox is that theintended audience for the German cultural programs is largely Vietnamese,while the public for the Vietnamese programs is largely foreign. Perhaps thatis what Augustin means by “exchange”; however, it also means that art worksexhibited in these spaces are not seen by the Vietnamese public. The mes-sage, if there is one, is either lost on the foreign viewer or intended for a non-Vietnamese audience.

When Aào Anh Khánh performs in his home in Gia Lâm, his audience,consisting of thousands of people by some estimates, is largely local, with theexception of a few informed foreigners living in Vietnam. When he per-forms at L’Espace, the ratio of outsiders to locals shifts, with more foreignerswatching than Vietnamese. This would appear to have everything to do withthe location of the performance. According to local artists and people whonormally keep a close watch on cultural activities in Hà Nbi, most Viet-namese do not like to come to the international spaces. Some even said theydid not “dare,”17 explaining that “these spaces are not for Vietnamese.”Much like the hotels, embassies, boutiques, cafes, and spas that cater to for-eigners in Hà Nbi, L’Espace, the Goethe Institut, and the British Councilare not seen as “public” spaces when it comes to exhibitions. That is, thespaces are constructed, or perceived to be constructed, as “closed” spaces forart, requiring an invitation or special entitlement to access them. Aào AnhKhánh’s house, on the other hand, is “open” because it is his home and istherefore not as intimidating to Vietnamese as the international spaces.Conversely, foreigners, who often express a desire to partake in “authentic”Vietnamese experiences, would not readily enter a Vietnamese house unlessproperly invited—illustrating a distinct cultural difference between foreignand Vietnamese definitions of private and public.18 A Vietnamese home,even the home of an artist, appears “private” to non-Vietnamese, whereasa cultural center does not; to the Vietnamese, the same cultural center

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intended for public use appears “private,” while an artist’s home does not.Jurgen Habermas’ notion of the public sphere—where “private people cometogether as a public”—is useful here. Different kinds of public spheres existin different sociohistorical circumstances, and foreigners in Hà Nbi inhabitdifferent public spheres than do local inhabitants.19 That Aào Anh Khánh isable to transcend notions of the public and private and appeal to both for-eign and Vietnamese audiences is part of the success of his performances.The core of his work lies in the idea that he can perform at all, that his bodycan be used as a canvas and that in the process he is accepted as a legitimateartist, at least in the popular sense.

Aào Anh Khánh’s popularity presents a dilemma for some of the youngerperformance artists who are trying to break away from commercial forms ofart. While they are encouraged by the attention that his performances havereceived, they are worried that mass appeal would undermine their ownnotions of “experimental” or “alternative” art. Thus there are at least two def-initions of performance art, and Aào Anh Khánh’s events present only oneof these forms. Other artists, like Ainh Anh Quân, Tr6n LMKng, and TrMKngTân, present “rougher” or more spontaneous forms of performance art.Using few props other than their bodies or household objects, these artistsstage one- to three-minute acts as part of longer performance art programsscheduled over the course of an evening. They sometimes perform in theinternational spaces mentioned above, but mostly these events occur at NhàSàn A+c, the home and studio of Nguy#n Mfnh A+c.

A nhà sàn is a house built on stilts, the traditional style favored by many ofVietnam’s ethnic minorities living in the highlands. The house is elevated toallow animals to graze below and to keep predators at bay. It also preventsflooding and allows cool air to flow through the house. Nguy#n Mfnh A+cbought his house in the highlands and brought it to Hà Nbi piece by piece.Since he made the Nhà Sàn A+c his home, other artists have followed suit,including Aào Anh Khánh, whose home in Gia Lâm is a nhà sàn.

Nguy#n Mfnh A+c’s home became known as Nhà Sàn A+c, or “A+c’sNhà Sàn,” when artists started using the lower level as an exhibition space.An antiques dealer by trade, he came up with the idea of using his house asan exhibition space when he and his friends grew tired of the impersonaland uninspiring nature of the increasingly numerous galleries in Hà Nbi.

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Using their own funds and sending out hand-written and photocopied invi-tations, artists began to use his house as a site for experimentation outside ofthe more “public” spaces that the galleries and government-sponsoredspaces provided. His house offered a more intimate setting, away from thegaze of the authorities and the mainstream art-going public. Gradually,though, by word of mouth, his house events also attracted foreigners andeventually, the periodic presence of officials, policemen, art critics, minis-ters, and so forth. However, because the space is also his home, there wasnothing to prevent the exhibitions from happening.

Since the opening of the international art centers, fewer exhibitions takeplace at Nhà Sàn A+c. But Nguy#n Mfnh A+c still hosts impromptu per-formances because, as he says, they “still capture the spirit of the low-budget,non-profit, experimental art piece.”20 One chilly evening in early 2005, Ireceived a call from him informing me of a gathering at his house. Thedusty ground floor had been cleared of the furniture that he regularly sells.The open-air space under the house proper served as an exhibition space,and people gathered on the sides, leaving the center open for the performers.A poster on one of the walls indicated the names of the artists and the titlesof their pieces. The series began with a small introduction, and then theaudience watched the artists take turns performing. Each piece lasted only afew minutes. Unlike Aào Anh Khánh’s elaborate shows, the performanceswere subdued. The artists wore plain clothes and other than their own bod-ies, used only a few mundane utensils as part of their acts, including mirrors,wire, string, rubber bands, chairs, Post-it notes, and a glass box.

The props were mostly used interactively with the body: A string served totie an arm, mirrors were smashed, Post-it notes were stuck on the audience,and a chair was dressed in a rain poncho. Although the props did not seemto carry a great deal of significance in themselves, the use of objects to harmthe body seemed particularly evocative to me. Although the violence thatthe artists’ did to their bodies was very mild (tying string to one’s arm orbreaking a mirror with a fist is not particularly destructive), it did signal thatthe artists were trying to convey a disturbance.

This disturbance brought to mind the German artist Joseph Beuys, forwhom performance was a means of transcending the body,21 and scholarsJacquelynn Baas and Mary Jane Jacob, who see a relationship between

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Buddhism and performance as a means of representing human suffering.22

While it is possible to interpret the content of these particular performancesin this way, the context of the works makes it clear that they were also aboutdisplaying these emotions to a public that would understand and respondto them.

The public display of emotion has varied connotations in Vietnam.Because people live in crowded quarters with little privacy and one is con-stantly “on display,” sentiments are more easily “performed” than sponta-neously expressed, and public expressions of emotion are generally limitedto a distinct locale where such things are acceptable. For example, while it iscommon, if not expected, to wail and cry loudly at a funeral, it is not cus-tomary to burst into tears for other reasons, such as a broken heart or trau-matic news. Not surprisingly, sentiments and emotions are the foundationsof some art forms in Vietnam. For example, in hát quan hL, or folk singing,the voice is said to come from the gut [bEng] or the “heart,” and songs areoften manifestations of feelings of devotion, respect, consideration, andlove.23 Performing (and listening to) songs is a way of channeling one’s emo-tional outbursts, of containing them and designating a specific location forthem. Some hát quan hL performances are intimate affairs, and specificlocations are chosen for rounds of singing.24

These qualities might give us an insight into the intent of the perform-ance artists at places like Nhà Sàn A+c. Just as performance singing is a wayof expressing one’s emotions in a public domain, perhaps these artists alsouse the occasion to display their own sentiments, or to express more univer-sal feelings. In the visual arts like painting or sculpture, emotions are almostnever expressed, so it is possible that performance is a way of providing acontext for intimate expressions, to define a location for this expression infront of an intimate audience made up a close-knit community of artists.

These performances are technically “public,” since they happen in the“open,” and yet they remain “private” in that they are not widely announcedin the media. Performances are small affairs compared to the potential audi-ence for a popular film, for example. The location of the performances,however, is key to their definition as “public” events by the authorities. Ifthey take place inside an artist’s home, they do not qualify as public events,but if they take place in an open space in the countryside or in a restaurant,

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then the authorities would be more apt to intervene. For example, in oneperformance event organized by Tr6n LMKng, entitled Lim Dim, or Half-waking Slumber, nine Japanese artists were invited to participate and per-formances were scheduled at four different venues. One venue was locatedfifty kilometers outside of Hà Nbi, at the foot of the northern mountainrange. Another venue was a lakeside restaurant. The Goethe Institut and theBritish Council hosted the other two events. The first event had barelybegun when the police came to break up the show. The second was can-celled when the police showed up at the restaurant. The other two wereallowed to proceed. Neither the local artists nor the visiting artists seemeddaunted by the disruption. “It is part of the program,” said Tr6n LMKng. Theyounger artists involved in the event concurred; “It makes it more exciting,”one explained.

Indeed, some of the performances that were allowed at the Goethe Insti-tut and the British Council were among the most provocative. A man lay onhis stomach while his father laid on top of him and read from a book, a couplekissed, a man popped pills and urinated into a container, another man hungmirrors on himself and shattered them against himself, and another had around of suction cups shot onto his body (see Figures 2 and 3).

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F I G U R E 2 : Lê Vu and his father performing in front of

the British Council in Hà Nô. i, October 13, 2004

(photograph by author).

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Most of the significance of these pieces was lost on the foreigners whocame into the cultural center that evening. “It is amateurish and ridiculous,”said one. “How can you call this art?” said another. Unlike Aào AnhKhánh’s multimedia displays, these performances appeared small and sim-plistic. Yet there was meaning in the pieces. Perhaps the couple who kissedrepresented an example of repressed emotions coming out in the form of aperformance. Shattered glass and violent traditional medicinal methodswere also outward manifestations of contained frustration. And beingweighed down by one’s father, reading the epic poem Kim V#n KiMu [TheTale of KiMu], may symbolize the burden of the past on the younger genera-tion of Vietnamese.

The most important aspect of these performances may be the fact thatthey took place at all. As Tr6n LMKng said in his description of the Lim Dimweekend, even mundane acts of sitting around can be considered “per-formance.” Indeed, all Vietnamese could arguably be described as “per-forming” their everyday life events. After years of being watched and havingto conform to strict government regulations in the name of communism, cit-izens may have grown used to “acting,” concealing their emotions or behav-ing in ways that are unnatural in order to avoid suspicion or to behave inexpected, standardized ways.

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F I G U R E 3 : Nguyên Quang Huy performing at the

Goethe Institut, October 12, 2004 (photograph by

author).

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That artists are able to gather and attract an audience, even one made upmostly of other artists, is significant in itself, considering the rules againstpublic assemblies issued by the government, and it may not be entirelyunusual. Performance art resembles similar displays of ritualized emotion,such as singing and the theatrical performances that take place in villagetemple courtyards. All of these are, perhaps, more closely connected to dailyacts of communal living than “art” that is staged in an auditorium, an exhi-bition hall, or a museum.

Performance Art as Anti-Art

To suggest that performance art is a ritual, an act, a display of internalizedemotions is not to suggest that it is not art, as its critics contend. However,to call it a form of “anti-art” does not do it full justice, either. If it fallsunder the category of “anti-art” it is because it is not accepted as art; it isused as a provocative art form, one that runs counter to expectations ofart, those of both its proponents and its opponents. In that way, it bearsstrong resemblance to the aims of Dada and the surrealist artists of the1920s, as well as those of the Fluxus and Gutai movements of the 1960s.25

Although Vietnamese artists do not necessarily have those references inmind when they stage their performance events, performance art did notappear in Vietnam out of nowhere. When artists in China used subver-sive performance acts in the battle with authorities during the Tianan-men Square confrontations, the news reached Vietnam shortly after 1989.Vietnamese artists had been thinking for some time about trying out a“local” version of performance art, and the Chinese example must havebeen inspirational to them. To say that performance art in Vietnammerely copies from Europe or China denies its local context, but it can-not be denied that performance art owes a great deal to the global com-munity of artists with which Vietnamese artists are increasingly incontact. Performance thus becomes a lingua franca, a universal languagewith which artists communicate.

Performance art is not the only art form to fulfill this admittedly vaguedefinition of “anti-art.” As I write this, the artist TrMKng Tân’s exhibition atthe Goethe Institut in Hà Nbi was recently closed by the authorities for itssubversive nature.26 Installation art works, such as TrMKng Tân work giant

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diaper stuffed with cash that was shut down by the authorities, tend to carrymore loaded political commentary than many of the performance pieces,and they may be more apt to represent what many art critics in the Westwould call “radical” art in that they are more visually provocative. Perfor-mance art is less immediately confrontational, which is why it may have dif-ficulty being taken seriously by the art community. Its message is oftenvague, and the art works are performed in marginal spaces and are stillexperimental in nature. Yet, the medium of performance art offers artists theopportunity to disconnect from the established notions of art and, moreimportantly, to reconnect with their own community, other artists, an audi-ence, a public, and themselves. As Joseph Beuys once stated, performanceart is a process of social transformation—a means of achieving and asserting,even creating, individuality in a society indifferent to it.27 Performance offersa way of both attracting attention to the self and averting the gaze of theestablishment. Because of performance art’s ephemeral qualities, indeed itsqualities of impermanence and its link to suffering, it also carries a spiritualdimension that goes virtually unrecognized and unnoticed.

Rather than label performance art as a local version of European or Chinese“anti-art,” I prefer to refer to it as a form of art that is “anti–Vietnamese art.”By that I mean that it contradicts every definition of art known to Vietnameseartists prior to its inception. In performance, the work of art is the artist himor herself. It is not an object, and so it cannot be described in terms that artprofessionals in Vietnam are accustomed to using. Performance art does notcontain representations of color and form, it does not represent a picture ofthe countryside or of a person, it cannot be interpreted as containing ele-ments of national pride as customarily formulated. It does not match theusual expectations of a Vietnamese image, such as a temple, a hat, a dress, avillage, or a monument—rather, it simply is. Even though the performersare Vietnamese and the context of performance resembles that of traditionalsinging contests, no artist had ever before used the body as a canvas, as thework itself. This may appear rather contradictory, and it is perhaps whyperformance art gets such mixed reviews from the public: it is seen as“imported” and therefore not “authentic,” it is seen as subversive and there-fore not “legitimate,” it is seen as amateur and unsophisticated and thereforenot to be taken seriously as “art.”28

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To consider performance art as “anti–Vietnamese art” is not to reflectnegatively either on the art of performance or on Vietnamese art. On thecontrary, it provides a way to critique the image of Vietnamese art that artistsand their audiences have created, an image that has become so etched intheir minds that they cannot dissociate “Vietnamese art” from a certain set ofprinciples. Some opponents of performance art claim to argue against it onaesthetic grounds, as demonstrated in the anecdote that opened this essay.But, as Pierre Bourdieu pointed out, taste is subjectively determined bysocial values and the politics of class. “Taste classifies, and it classifies theclassifier. Social subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish them-selves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly, thedistinguished and the vulgar, in which their position in the objective classi-fications is expressed or betrayed.”29

Vietnamese performance artists are well aware of the tastes of the gov-ernment and the international community. They are also aware of what areconsidered acceptable art forms in Vietnam. They grew up with thosenotions. Nonetheless, if they are intent on breaking from those associations,they must also accept them as true, or they would not have anything to rebelagainst. If a society were ideally open to all art forms, segments of societywould not be moved to articulate dissent. One cannot possibly tell whetheror not artists and art critics will someday see performance art as the mediumfor the message, nor can one predict how long performance art will last in anage of rapidly changing fashions. What this article has attempted to argue isthat performance art has created a vehicle for expressing emotional anxietyin a way that makes sense locally. Performance art is therefore not justanother borrowed Western art form trying to vie for attention from an inter-national audience of art curators and dealers. It is an earnest and, I wouldsay, desperate attempt on the part of artists to display themselves in uncon-ventional ways with the goal of some day being able to speak with theirvoices instead of their bodies. �

nora taylor is Research Associate at the Freer/Sackler Gallery, Smith-sonian Institution. She wishes to thank the Council for InternationalExchange of Scholars, the Fulbright Scholar program, and the WilliamJoiner Center Rockefeller Fellows Program at the University of Massachusetts

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for research and writing funds for this article. She also thanks Rich Streit-matter-Tr6n and an anonymous reader for The Journal of Vietnamese Stud-ies for their suggestions, and Tr6n LMKng, Nguy#n NhM Huy, and Boreth Lyfor their insights and encouragement.

abstract

Since 1995, artists in Vietnam have been staging performance art events inalternative art spaces around Hà Nbi and H7 Ch5 Minh City, often defyinggovernment restrictions on public gatherings. That they take place outsideof the ordinary venues for art, such as galleries and museums, gives theseperformances an illicit flavor that both attracts and deflects attention. Thispaper will argue that these art forms originate in a local culture of ritual-ized displays of emotion and are freeing artists from the constraints of themainstream art world.

keywords: art, artists, performance, avant-garde

Notes

1. See Nora A. Taylor, “Why Have There Been No Great Vietnamese Artists?”Michigan Quarterly Review 64, no. 1 (2005): 149–165; Nora A. Taylor, “WhoseArt Are We Studying?” in Studies in Southeast Asian Art: Essays in Honor ofStanley J. O’Connor, ed. Nora A Taylor (Ithaca, NY: Cornell South East AsiaProgram, 2000), 143–157.

2. See Carolyn Dean, “The Trouble with (the Term) Art,” Art Journal 65, no. 2(20067): 24–32.

3. This phenomenon has also been observed in the United States, where, as GrantKester states, “the most experimental art forms in recent years have been dis-played outside of the mainstream spaces of galleries and museums.” Grant Kester,Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art, (Berkeleyand Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004), flap jacket copy.

4. Ainh Anh Quân, interview by author, September 1995, Hà Nbi, Vietnam.5. Performance art, as defined in the Western art tradition, is a genre of art that

comprises short acts by artists performed in front of an audience. These acts aregenerally nonverbal and involve gestures of the body and a minimal use ofprops or visual aids. Performance art was popular in the 1960s in the UnitedStates but originated in the Dada movements of Europe in the 1920s.

6. Joe Fyfe, “Making It New: Despite Limited Funds and Bureaucratic Trepida-tion, Hanoi Has a Burgeoning Art Scene that Features Performance, Video and

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Collaborative Workshops—Report From Hanoi, Vietnam,” Art in America 91,no. 10 (2003): 77–81.

7. See especially DMKng TM.ng’s contribution to the Internet roundtable discussionon contemporary art in Vietnam, “Mm Thu=t Vi0t Nam kang 1 kâu?” [Where IsVietnamese Art Now?], http://www.talawas.org/talaDB/showFile.php?res=767&rb=0201 (accessed December 20, 2006).

8. Nadine André-Pallois, Indochine: Lieu d’échange culturel? [Indochina: A Site ofCultural Exchange?] (Paris: EFEO, 1998); and Nora Annesley Taylor, Paintersin Hanoi: An Ethnography of Vietnamese Art (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘iPress, 2004).

9. Nguy#n Quang Phòng, Các HLa S\ Tr}.ng Cao xtng MY Thuut xông D}Lng[The Painters of the Indochina School of Fine Arts] (Hà Nbi: Mm Thu=t, 1992).

10. Among the earliest publications on contemporary Vietnamese art, see, forexample, Jeffrey Hantover, Uncorked Soul (Hong Kong: Plum Blossoms, 1991)or, more recently, Corinne de Menonville, La Peinture vietnamienne, une aven-ture entre tradition et modernité [Vietnamese Painting: An Adventure betweenTradition and Modernity] (Paris: Edition d’art et d’histoire, ARHIS [Art andHistory], 2003).

11. For a discussion on the literary debates on art for art’s sake versus art for themasses, see Georges Boudarel, Cent fleurs éclosent dans la nuit du Vietnam:Communisme et Dissidence, 1954–56 [A Hundred Flowers Bloom in the Viet-namese Night: Communism and Dissidence, 1954–56] (Paris: Jacques Bertoin,1991); and Hirohide Kurihara, “Changes in the Literary Policy of the Viet-namese Workers’ Party, 1956–58,” in Indochina in the 1940s and 1950s, ed.Takashi Shiraishi and Motoo Furuta (Ithaca, NY: South East Asia Program,Cornell University Press, 1992). On the artists who chose or were forced toremain marginal to the national views of art, see Nora A. Taylor, “Framing theNational Spirit: Viewing and Reviewing Painting under the Revolution,” in TheCountry of Memory: Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam, ed. Hue TamHo Tai (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001),109–134.

12. For a useful study of the twentieth-century art history of the south, see Bbi Tr6nHu-nh, “Vietnamese Aesthetics from 1925 Onwards” (PhD dissertation, SydneyCollege of the Arts, 2005).

13. Similar trends took place in Cambodia, where post–Khmer Rouge artistshawked their paintings of Angkor in cafes and galleries around Phnom Penhwhen tourists started to arrive in Cambodia in the late 1990s. See Ingrid Muan’sexcellent dissertation on the subject, “Citing Angkor: The ‘Cambodian Arts’ inthe Age of Restoration, 1918–2000” (PhD dissertation, Columbia University,2001).

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14. See the profiles and statements of and by artists in Jeffrey Hantover’s UncorkedSoul: Contemporary Art from Vietnam (Hong Kong: Plum Blossoms, 1991).

15. In H7 Ch5 Minh City, performance art and video are more established than inHà Nbi and take place on a regular basis thanks to the presence of prominentforeign and returning overseas Vietnamese artists. In fact, the alternative artscene in H7 Ch5 Minh City is in many ways quite different from that in HàNbi, and it would be unjust to merely mention it as part of the same phenome-non. The video classes and workshops of artists Jun Nguy#n-Hatsushiba andRich Streitmatter-Tr6n have had a transformative effect on the city’s art commu-nity. One might even go so far as to say that artists in H7 Ch5 Minh City havebenefited from greater exposure to sophisticated art media and technology thantheir Hà Nbi counterparts, thanks to these artists. Their work can no longer bedescribed simply as “experimental” and avant-garde; it is truly art with purpose.However, I will not expand on these contributions because they do not fit thisarticle’s emphasis on Hà Nbi.

16. Phuong Lien, “But What Does It All Mean?” Vietnam Investment Review,Timeout, April 13, 2006.

17. “Không dám” [I don’t dare] was the phrase that my friends used to explain whythey didn’t go into L’Espace.

18. For further study on public versus private space in Vietnam, see Lisa Drum-mond, “Streetscapes: Practices of Public and Private Spaces in VietnameseCities,” Urban Studies 37, no. 12 (2000): 2377–2391; and Lisa Drummond andMandy Thomas, eds., Consuming Urban Culture in Contemporary Vietnam(London: Routledge/Curzon, 2003).

19. Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: AnInquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989).

20. Nguy#n Mfnh A+c, interview by author, October 2004, Hà Nbi.21. See Elizabeth Armstrong and Joan Rothfuss, In the Spirit of Fluxus (Minneapolis:

Walker Art Center, 1993).22. Jacquelynn Baas and Mary Jane Jacob, eds., introduction to Buddha Mind in

Contemporary Art (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,2004), 18.

23. Lauren Meeker, “From Inside the Song to the Stage: Quan hL Practice inVietnam Today” (paper presented at “Conference on the Preservation and Pro-motion of Folksong in Contemporary Vietnam,” Institute for Culture and Infor-mation, Hà Nbi, Vietnam, March 29–31, 2006).

24. Ibid.25. Largely associated with the German artist Joseph Beuys, the movement known

as Fluxus took its name from the Latin term meaning to “flow.” It began in NewYork and spread across Europe. Although there was no manifesto or definition

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of the movement, it was known for its happenings and spontaneous events pro-moting unrestrained free expression. Gutai was a movement that originated inpost-war Japan and was led by a group of artists who decided to free art from itspast traditional origins and especially to sever its links with outside influences.Both movements used nontraditional media to convey their messages.

26. Bill Hayton, “Nappy Art Work Gets Vietnam Ban,” BBC News Asia-Pacific,January 26, 2007.

27. Joseph Beuys, quoted in Donald Kuspit, “A Critical History of 20th-CenturyArt,” Artnet Magazine, http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/kuspit/kuspit7-21-06.asp (accessed December 20, 2006).

28. Natasha Kraevskaia, a prominent Hà Nbi resident art critic and gallery man-ager, is rather skeptical about the future of performance art. See NatashaKraevskaia, “Vietnamese Modern Art. Change. Stagnation. Potential. Strategy”(paper presented at “Conference on Contemporary Art,” Hanoi Institute for ArtHistorical Research, December 2000); and Natasha Kraevskaia, TS Hoài CF

H}Lng Sang MiMn x{t MRi [From Nostalgia Towards Exploration] (Hà Nbi:Kim A7ng Publishing House, 2005).

29. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987).

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