| Art of Vietnam in NY Goes
Beyond War Trauma To Brain in a
Frame and Underwear with Nails
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack
SDNY
COURTHOUSE,
May 23 – It's not everyday you
can go to a show of 17
Vietnamese artists, outside of
Vietnam. But May 23 on the far
west side of Manhattan in the
Eli Klein gallery, the show
"Ceci N'est Pas Une Guerre"
(This is Not a War, playing
off Magritte's pipe)
opened.
Despite
intermittently pouring rain
out on West Street, the two
room space was standing room
only. Some marveled at the
piece that looked different
from each angle you looked at
it. A metal frame hung in
mid-air, focusing attendees on
a shape hanging behind it that
looked, at least to this
viewer, like a
brain.
Also
hanging was what at first
glance looked like the two
pieces of a bikini, strangely
heavy. The work, by Nguyen
Phuong Linh, is called
Allergy: "six kilograms of
nails on underwears." Not a
pipe, indeed.
Eli Klein,
who greeted people at the
door, pitched the show as
breaking Vietnamese art out of
the "confines of the narrow
narratives of war, trauma and
survival."
As
luck or timing has it, Netflix
is now promoting a multi-part
series about the Vietnam War,
which to its credit interviews
more Vietnamese people, from
both North and South, than is
usually the case. Still the
documentary has no art.
This show
is not only a good
counterbalance: it is great
art. Prices are discretely
only available via a QR code,
and range from $2300 to
$25,000. Get it while it gets
hot!
(The show runs
from May 23 to August 23 at
398 West Street, corner of W.
10th Street)
***
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