Porcelain maker shows off

by Le Hung Vong

Rhymes with gauze: Porcelian vases by Minh Long No 1 are displayed at the HCM City showroom. — VNS Photo Ngoc Hai.

HCM CITY—Viet Nam's leading fine porcelain maker Minh Long No 1 yesterday opened a new showroom in HCM City that displays exclusive products it has made over the last five years.
The 600sq.m showroom at the Minh Long Tower Building on 17 Ba Huyen Thanh Quan Street in HCM City's District 3 displays more than 2,000 porcelain wares includings bowls, dishes, teapots, jewellery, artworks and souvenirs.

The showroom also showcases national souvenirs chosen as gifts to foreign heads of State by the Vietnamese Government.

Also on display are exquisite and exclusive artistic works of which there are fewer than five copies each.

Ly Ngoc Minh, general director of the Binh Duong Province-based porcelain producer, said at the opening ceremony that each artisan was able to make only one to three copies of these works per year.

While porcelain industries in other countries bake their coloured works at 850OC, Minh Long No 1 employs a technique that does it at 1,250OC, he said.

"This high temperature helps to keep the colour on porcelain unchanged and renders details of the painting," said Minh.

Minh Long has produced fewer than 200 porcelain works of this type in the past five years, with fewer than 10 copies of each work. Some of them were single pieces.

The works cost between VND40 million (US$2,000) and 300 million ($15,000) a piece, Minh said.

"We're not targeting any profit from this series of Minh Long products. We want to show that we can do, and do even better, what other porcelain makers around the world produce," he added.

As an indication of the care that is taken in making these products, the company has been unable to fulfil orders submitted for these works during a three-day promotion more than two years ago.

"These artistic works are the pride of not only Minh Long No 1, but also of Binh Duong Province's porcelain industry as well," he said.

Family tradition

Minh Long No 1 was founded in 1970 by Minh, whose family had been involved with the ceramic trade for generations.

Combining his passion for porcelain with the knowledge and experience of his ancestors, Minh dedicated his life to studying firing techniques and composition and spending time designing a unique style for Minh Long's products.

The company, which has a 120,000sq.m factory in Binh Duong's Thuan An District, is the first company in the country's porcelain industry to use a gas-fueled kiln for its production lines.

Minh Long's porcelain products, which have won over many connoisseurs and discriminating buyers, have been exported to the US, Europe and other Asian countries. — VNS

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Culture Vulture

The National Fine Arts Exhibition, held only once every five years, represents the best of Vietnamese arts. Vi Kien Thanh, chairman of the culture ministry's Department of Fine Arts, Photography and Exhibition, spoke to Culture Vulture about the event.

How is this year's exhibition different from previous ones?

The exhibition is the most significant event in Vietnamese fine arts as it reviews five years of creativity by artists from around the country.

This year, the 18th exhibition is displaying paintings, lacquer, sculpture, graphics and installation art which is quite fresh. Not many installation artworks are displayed in comparison with other kinds, but they reflect the importance and position of contemporary fine arts.

The jury board selected entries from photos, not from original items as they had in previous years. This has helped artists from remote regions submit works to the board and saved time and effort. This year the Art Councils has also included new members to guarantee the equity and accuracy of the result.

Why aren't all cities and provinces represented in the national exhibition?

In the previous exhibition, the organising board tried to show representative works from all cities and provinces, but this year only the most excellent have been honoured. In fact, we couldn't select any artworks from nine provinces.

The selected works include 500 from Ha Noi, 143 from HCM City and 26 from the central province of Thua Thien-Hue, while 28 other provinces and cities are represented by five to ten works each. Many other locations have only one or two works on display.

The national fine arts exhibition is the most professional and prestigious rendezvous for artists nationwide, so only the most outstanding artworks are selected and recognised regardless of where they originate. This exhibition's quality and value have been affirmed. We are moved when many artists carrying their works from remote areas but can't give them prizes if they are not worthy.

The selection process was fair and objective and works were chosen based on their content and quality. There is no privilege for any artist.

But the number of work selected is uneven in between large and small cities and rural provinces, indicating uneven development in the fine arts. How do you think about this problem?

This is true, but it's quite normal. We cannot and do not expect equal development of high quality fine arts based on geographical criteria. Talent and good quality comes from the individual artist. We care more about bringing those good artworks to viewers in different regions so as many people as possible can enjoy the achievements of the country's best artists.

What do you think of the works of the many young artists in this exhibition?

The content of the works in this exhibition is quite diverse, ranging from the country's development, defence, and industrialisation and modernisation process, to historical topics and contemporary social issues, as well as the country's international integration.

Artists have had opportunities to join in field trips to such places as Pac Bo Cave in the northern province of Cao Bang, Nam Dan District in the central province of Nghe An, and the former Ho Chi Minh Trail. However, some young artists are not really interested in the country's common and current issues. I think they should be more responsible. I have strong belief in the young generation of artists. They are well-educated and have good professional skills as well as enthusiasm and creativity. We need to be more patient, as fine art is not something easy.

What will be the direction for Viet Nam fine arts after this exhibition?

This year marks the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Viet Nam Fine Arts University. Viet Nam's fine arts have a long tradition.

The goal for Vietnamese fine arts will to continue producing new and high-quality works of art and contributing to the aesthetic awareness and development of the Vietnamese people. We are working on many things right now, including education, training, and planning and creating a framework for the development of the fine arts in Viet Nam and for bringing more works to the people. The ultimate goal for the development of Vietnamese fine arts is to contribute to an advanced artistic culture that is uniquely Vietnamese. — VNS

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VN's first insect photo exhibition opens

HA NOI — The country's first ever photo exhibition of insects is on display in Ha Noi offering a closer look at Viet Nam's anthropological population.

Co-organised by the Viet Nam Nature Museum and the Italian Embassy, the exhibition has gathered over 200 photos of insects from across the country taken by researcher Vu Van Lien and Italian photographer Saolo Bambi.

Each panel features a characteristic of the insect life in an artistic style although they were initially taken purely for scientific research purposes.

There are also nine photos of typical forests throughout Viet Nam, located at various different altitudes from the southern island of Phu Quoc to Fansipan, the peak of Indochina, in the northernwestern province of Lao Cai.

The exhibition aims to celebrate 2010 as the first year of international biological diversity initiated by the United Nations.

"The exhibition also has a further purpose of promoting the protection of biological diversity as well as our living environment for now and for future generations," said Professor Chau Van Minh, chairman of the Viet Nam Science and Technology Institute.

The exhibition will be on display at Exhibition House, 45 Trang Tien Street, until tomorrow.

Concert features Tchaikovsky works

HCM CITY — The HCM City Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera (HBSO) will present an evening of Tchaikovsky's music this weekend.

Beginning with Slanovic March in B-flat minor, Op.31, a popular work which highlights the spirit of Russian people, the concert will continue with Symphony No 5 in E Minor, op.64, which was written in 1988.

The work includes four chapters that comprise Russian folk and European music. It has been performed many times by prestigious orchestras worldwide.

The evening will finish with ballet performances by HBSO's young dancers, including Phuc Hung, Hong Chau, Phi Diep and Diem Trang – four talents who have helped infuse new ideas into traditional Vietnamese dance.

They will perform five extracts from popular Russian and French dances like Diana&Acteon, Chopiniana, The Flowers and Le Corsaire.

The concert, conducted by Tran Vuong Thach, will begin at 8pm tomorrow at the HCM City Opera House, 7 Lam Son Square, District 1.

Tickets priced from VND20,000 (for students) to 200,000 (US$10) can be bought at the theatre.

Sculptures celebrate origins of life

HCM CITY — Nineteen sculptures symbolising rice, seeds, and embryos, which their creator Bui Hai Son considers the original source of humans, are on display at an exhibition in HCM City.

Originarium (in Latin characters), or "The Origin," on at the HCM City Fine Arts University's Applied Arts Gallery, displays sculptures in bronze, wood, glass, and some other materials.

Son's works are displayed in two separate sections – one features just sculptures and in the other several works have been put together to create installation works.

For instance, Nguon (The Origin) and Lua (Rice) are among the highlights in the first section while they have also been put together along with more works to form Phuong Nam (The South).

"I spent at least a year working on my pieces, which depict Vietnamese culture and lifestyle," Son said. Nguon, representing a grain of rice and made from wood and bronze, is three metres long.

His colleagues and he faced challenges in exhibiting their works because of the giant size of most of them, he said. "I wanted a big open space to display my works and finally settled for the Applied Arts Gallery."

Son, born in An Giang Province in 1957, graduated from the Fine Arts University in 1987. He has displayed his works in many group exhibitions and fine-arts festivals at home and abroad. Last year he was invited to the Miyazaki International Exhibition of Contemporary Sculpture in Japan.

Originarium will be on show at 52 Phan Dang Luu Street, Binh Thanh District, until Monday. — vns

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Artist bridges cross-cultural aesthetics

Expressive: Robert Mihagui and his works at the Homeland Colors: West&East exhibition now in HCM City. — Photo Sunny Rose

HCM CITY — Thirty contemporary oil paintings by French-Vietnamese artist Robert Mihagui are on display at an exhibition in HCM City.

Jacques Blanchard, an architect and Mihagui's friend, says there are few differences between the man and his art: "We find the same dominating characteristics, the spontaneity, and the instinctive gesture."

But, depending on their own perspective, beholders can read different things from a single work. Thus, a painting could portray the tranquil landscapes of Touraine in France, which are dear to his heart, or the stark beauty of northern Viet Nam where he spent his early childhood.

The riot of colours provoke a patchwork of feelings, from dazzling joy to a Vietnamese melancholy, giving his works a strength and charm of which it is not easy to grow tired.

Mihagui was born in 1945 in Vinh Phu Province during French colonial time. He studied fine arts from 1961 to 1964 in Surgeres, France, after moving to that country in 1958 with his father.

He spent much time travelling in the painting circles of Montmartre to the detriment of his studies after deciding at a fairly young age that his passion was painting and his calling was in the arts.

He was interested in pictorial techniques and pigments.

At 25, he hit upon a personal style which is somewhere between abstraction and post-impressionism though his works were impressionist in the beginning.

He narrates an interesting story for his move towards abstraction.

"I was disappointed with a work I had just finished. I wiped it off by petrol and went to sleep. The first guest who came to my studio the next day insisted on buying that picture which had now become quite so interesting."

He now views his style as a reconciliation of Vietnamese and European aesthetics, with the language of modern Western abstraction being enriched by a Vietnamese sensibility rooted in the past.

In 1975 he spent six months restoring the dome of Saint Augustin's Church in Paris, France, believing there could be no better inspiration than that born from manual work in such a spiritual place.

He currently lives in Viet Nam, refreshing his memories of its spectacular landscapes.

The exhibition, titled Homeland Colors: West&East, will be on until Saturday at Phuong Mai, 129B, Le Thanh Ton Street, District in HCM City.

The works on display can also be seen at http//www.vietnam-art.com.vn.

The paintings are priced at US$1,000-$3,000. — VNS

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• Culture Vulture

Global video project tours Vietnam

Photo: Tuoi Tre

Project 35, an international exhibition of video works selected by 35 curators around the world, is launched by Independent Curators International (ICI) Thursday and expected to attract audiences in Hanoi, Hue and Ho Chi Minh City.

Each of the curators were invited to choose one work from an artist they think is important for audiences from around the world to experience. The resulting video selections are divided into four parts that will play over the period of one year.

The selections will also be presented simultaneously in an increasing number of venues world wide. The project, which was initiated by ICI in New York , has made its way to Vietnam thanks to San Art, the country's most active independent art space.

Project 35 celebrates ICI's 35-year life span as an organisation that connects emerging and established curators, artists and institutions, and fosters the building of international networks.

The exhibition opens with videos focusing on wide-ranging and controversial subject matter, including the uprisings and protests in post-colonial South Africa , the urban roads of modern-day HCMC, and the crime-filled streets of Bogota, Colombia .

Screenings are free and the first four screenings will take place simultaneously in Hanoi's Goethe Institute, HCMC 's Cafe Cao Minh and Hue's New Arts Space beginning at 6.30pm on Sept. 22.

The first session offers nine works, including the works of Vietnamse artists Tuan Andrew Nguyen and Ha Thuc Phu Nam , both of whom currently live and work in HCM City . The two artists were selected by HCM City-based curator and San Art director Zoe Butt.

Other artists were selected by the director of Objectif Exhibitions, Mai Abu El Dahab; the chief curator of the Mori Art Musuem in Tokyo, Mami Kataoka; an adjunct curator at the University of California Berkeley Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archive, Constance Lewallen; the artistic director of Philagrafika 2010, Jose Roca and senior lecturer and head of the Fine Arts Studio Practice in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, Kathryn Smith.

The selected works will demonstrate the diversity of content and style that the single-channel video can captures, including You Tube-style narrative to documentary format to clay-mation to digital animation. The videos show a variety of approaches from creating performance installations to reformatting a Walt Disney classic.

The project has already been screened in Albania , Mexico , Sweden and the US among others, and will continue to expand as more venues and chapters in the video series emerge. The project is expected to screen in 19 countries over the course of 2010 and 2011.
 

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Culture Vulture

The Viet Nam Folklore Association has announced the result of the first phase of its project for Publication of Vietnamese Ethnic Folklore, the project began in 2009 but slated to continue to 2019. Viet Nam News spoke to association chairman To Ngoc Thanh about the project.

Please give us a brief introduction to the project.

The project aims at preserving and advertising the abundant folklore cultural values of 54 ethnic groups which have been handed down and developed through generations. The association will select 2,000 works of research for publication out of 5,000 conducted. In the first stage of the project alone, which lasts until 2014, we plan to publish 1,000 works. So far, we have published 100 works.

What types of works are being published?

The works can be compilations of folkloric material, descriptive research or in-depth research on a particular form or aspect of folk culture.

For example, one work is entitled A System of Traditional Festivals of the Cham Ethnic Group in the Central Province of Ninh Thuan. Others include Folk Sayings and Proverbs of the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta Region, Orphaned Characters in the Folk Literature of the Mong, and Folk Music of the Ta Oi.

All books will be published in Vietnamese with an English abstract.

What priorities do you apply when publishing new works?

Of course, we give priority to endangered ethnic cultural values. The topics cover folk knowledge of agriculture and the environment, which expresses the relationship between man and nature. Traditional customs and festivals, which reflect the relationship between people and society, are also a focus.

In addition, we pay attention to people's thoughts expressed through important life passages like birth, coming-of-age ceremonies, marriages, illness and funerals, which reflect the relationship between community and individual. Religious ceremonies revealing the relationships between man and the universe, the supernatural and the spiritual world, are also a topic. Finally, literary achievements which express aesthetic ideals are also covered.

How will the books be distributed?

The publications will be distributed free to central and local libraries throughout the country. The books will reach universities, research institutes, military camps in border areas and offshore islands, and broadcasting stations. The books will also be sent to international cultural organisations based in Viet Nam, as well as universities and research institutes abroad with Viet Nam studies departments.

We will also print additional copies for commercial distribution and we have contacted some publishers. The Ha Noi Publishing House, for instance, will print some titles covering topics related to Ha Noi.

Is there any parallel project to translate the books into English or any other foreign languages so that the books can reach a wider audience?

We don't have any such plan for the time being. We don't have the budget for it. The translation fee is rather high. As far as I know, a page of English translation may cost VND150,000 (US$8). However, if foreign researchers, after reading the abstracts, have further requirements, we will try our best to serve them. — VNS

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