The Study of
Curatorial Culture
Curatorial Culture
ISSUE 6 The Beginning of Curating
Are curators really needed?
Curating independent art across the local and the global in Vietnam 1
Nguyễn-Hoàng-Quyên_Performance-at-AQM-located-in-Sàn-Art_photo-courtesy-of-AQM
It goes without saying that curation has always been related to ethics to a certain extent, the relationship between them, however, has just received attention in recent years especially after the publication of Maura Reilly’s Curatorial Activism, Towards an Ethics of Curating in 20181 and Jean-Paul Martinon’s Curating as Ethics in 2020. Whereas the former is, strictly speaking, dealing with politics rather than ethics, the later directly declares that curation itself is ethics, making the topic of curatorial ethics more remarkable.2 Taking the word “curate” in its root meaning of “caring for” allows us to expand the curatorial sphere to ethics. Regarding curation not only as selection, design, interpretation, and presentation, but also “caring” or “care-taking” revealed in the intersubjective and intimate relations is an ethical interpellation and response.
The Historical Context
Independent art discussed in this essay is understood as contemporary art existed outside the national art system and created by artists who stand independently from all state associations in Vietnam since the 1990s. Historically, Vietnamese independent art develops differently between regions, and in a close relation to the legacies of colonialism, the imposition of a centrally planned culture and the gradual of incomplete erosion of these constraints in the 1990s. Resulted from Cold War and the Điện Biên Phủ victory, Vietnam was divided into two nations between 1954 – 1975: the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in the North, and the Republic of Vietnam (RV) in the South. Simultaneously, ideologies during this time greatly decided aesthetics and the structure of art systems inversely in the two countries.
In the North, a “new socialist culture” (Trường Chinh 1943) was built under the Communist Party of Vietnam’s guidance within the orbit of international socialism since the early twenty century. As part of such culture, art reflected an interest in socialist realism, with its focus on peasants and workers and anti-imperialism during the anti-colonial movement. At the service of preparing for wars, the Vietnam Fine Arts Association (VFAA) (Phạm Văn Bạch, 1957) was established and the new museums’ mission was at the service of ‘building and defending the country’ (Hoàng Minh Giám, 1959). Under the VFAA, musicians, artists and art makers were considered as the labour force in the art field, charged with the artistic transmission of the Party and state’s messages into the factories, farms, collectives, and rural masses (Phạm Hùng 1961, 1962). To promote such activities, the Party awarded art prizes, of which the most honourable was Hồ Chí Minh prize (Hồ Chí Minh 1947; Phạm Văn Đồng 1981). Continuously, all publishing houses must issue their copyrights to the state, and subjected to censorship controls under the Ministry of Home Affairs (Hồ Chí Minh 1946a,b). Henceforth, a complete art mechanism was established within a closed system, in which the state was the sole art producer, distributor, and patron.
Meanwhile, developments in “Saigonese art” stood in contrast with the North reflecting exposure to French and international influences, particularly from the West (Huỳnh Bội Trân 2005: 196 – 224). In a more liberal socio-political atmosphere, Southern artistic and cultural activities developed in a way unseen in the North. Beside several new public art schools founded in Huế, Gia Định and Bình Dương, private ownership was the principal mode. By 1975 the South had upwards of one thousand printing houses, hundreds of publishing houses and daily newspapers. In this environment, space for independent art endured as did space for debates on art, culture, literature and philosophy. While in the North, most literature and art initiated during the anti-colonial period were banned, the Southern writings of the left-wing, anti-French but not avowedly socialist Tự lực Văn đoàn (The Self-Sustaining Literary Union) was taught in the southern high school curriculum into the 1960s. Despite sporadic and at times severe wartime censorship, independent and oppositional artistic expression in the South retained a strong presence right up until 30 April 1975.
After liberation (i.e. 1975), all Southern artistic production were replaced under the authority of the VFAA and set about the systematic erasure of the South’s modern art history. Repression of Southern art continued by way of bans on all pre-1975 Saigonese cultural products, the renaming of art schools, and re-educational programs framed around the promotion of the aesthetic of New Socialist Man. Re-education targeted not only former Saigon officials and soldiers, but artists including Trịnh Cung, Tạ Tỵ, Dương Văn Hùng, Nguyễn Thanh Thu and Mai Chửng. Upon release these and others either remained in Vietnam without art or risked their lives to flee the country among multitudes of “boat people” (ibid.: 273-276). In this way, Saigon’s formerly diverse art scene was assimilated into the hegemonic singularity of socialist realist art and culture.
1 Parts of this essay are based on material that I included in an article and a book chapter:
- Bùi Kim Đĩnh 2021. “Nổ Cái Bùm in Huế and Đà Lạt” on Art and Market, April 08, 2021.
- Bùi Kim Đĩnh 2022. “Movements of Independent Art in Contemporary Vietnam.” Jonathan D. London ed., Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Vietnam. Routledge 2022.
Nguyễn Đức Đạt _ Laurent Serpe_Nghệ thuật Vạn Tuế! (Art Forever!)_NCB(2020) burning view_photo courtesy of Yatender
The Return of Indepedent Art
This monotone system was though transformed since Vietnam twisted from its plan-economy to a market economy via policies of the economic reform so-called Đổi Mới in the 1990s. In the transition, there has been a modest expansion of space for free expression and a recalibration of the state’s approach to the repression and management of arts. In the new economic situation, independent art has returned and developed fluidly but in an uneasy dialogic relationship with an assemblage of state agencies. Facing the new capitalism, the Party-state’s art and cultural policies sketch between the development of “an advanced Vietnamese culture with an imbued national identity” (Lê Khả Phiêu 1998) and the promotion of a ‘cultural industry’ (the Party 2014) that magnets a variety of enthusiastic international organisations like Goethe Institut, British Council, Japan Foundation, Danish Embassy and so on.
Dancing in-between such binary, independent art has navigated gracefully throughout local and international art systems in its own way of curating that promises many surprises. Given that there is no proper education in art history or relevant fields, Vietnamese contemporary art curators aren’t professionally trained inland. They either are self-taught or come from foreign countries that makes their curation either differently from the global trajectory or distantly from the local culture. Arising from this circumstance, Nổ Cái Bùm (NCB)2 and A Queer Museum (AQM)3 reveal their curating strategies in an elastic shape that curators become needless. As an anual art week in Central Vietnam, NCB is structured in a shape of the decapitated heads of the Hydra. In facing unpredictability, its organizers could be anyone involved and anytime replaced. On the contrary, AQM functions as a one-man-show, in which curation, creation, preservation, communication, research and exhibition happen at once in certain times and spaces.
2 Content is based on my interviews and conversations with NCB’s organizers and artists conducted between January and August 2021.
3 JContent of AQM is based on my interviews and conversations with artist Đinh Thị Nhung conducted between April and August 2021.
Nguyễn Đức Đạt _ Laurent Serpe_Nghệ thuật Vạn Tuế! (Art Forever!)_NCB(2020) burning view_photo courtesy of Laurent Serpe
The Hydra’s Heads
In the Greek myths, Hydra is a gigantic water-snake-like monster with a number of heads, one of which is immortal. Anyone who attempts to behead the Hydra found that as soon as one head is cut off, two more heads will emerge from the fresh wound. In a shape of the Hydra, the art week NCB could not only move its heads but also transform its body to fit in particular situations. The below section reveals how the art week navigated in Central Vietnam. The moving multiple heads of NCB were flexibly structured amongst organizers, participants as well as arts paces.
The changeable heads of NCB were firstly made by a number of organisers from Mơ Đơ, Nest Studio and Symbioses in 2020. As a wine bar in a junky garden in the formal imperial citadel, Mơ Đơ is founded by Huế-based artists Trương Thiện, Hoàng Ngọc Tú, and Nguyễn Thị Thanh Mai, with the join of artists Đỗ Thanh Lãng and Phương Linh from Sài Gòn and Hà Nội. The artist bar opened for film screenings and art events besides selling drinks. Nearby, Nest Studio is a combination of artist studios and room rentals founded by artists Đào Tùng and Ngô Đình Bảo Châu in 2019. Besides its resident capacity, Nest Studio also includes artist gatherings, talks, film screenings and art events. Likewise, Symbioses is an art project initiated by curator Lê Thiên Bảo. Interested in the relation between arts and business, Thiên Bảo wants to create a connection between the art world and local enterprises. Via Symbioses, she aims to bring art to casual spaces and to change people’s habits towards appreciating and collecting artworks.
Those heads formed the art week into an elastic body, which was able to transform itself into different art spaces. Borrowing the 1996 Mazda 1200 from an artist friend, artist Hoàng Ngọc Tú turned the car into an artwork. The mobile performance ‘Trước giờ khai mạc’ (Before Opening) was in the form of a loudspeaker installed in a car cruising around the touristic citadel to boisterously announce NCB 2020. Using exactly the same propaganda instrument as the government, the satirical performance made it past the censoring gaze throughout the programme.
Moreover, these heads were adaptable enough to flux into transformable art spaces. Dealing with 14 prohibited artworks among 44 videos, artist talks and performances, a rushed rearrangement was quickly done with a reduction of six exhibition spaces to five. Nest Studio was then excluded and transformed into X-space – a hidden place showcasing all censored artworks. Corrections on printed matter and social media were quickly done. Yet, news on the hidden exhibition were spread among friends and the number of visitors was incredibly crowded. Artist Đào Tùng, also the founder of Nest Studio, stood in front of the studio to watch out for the authorities.
Without any curator in the role of conceptualizing the art week, 56 participating artists tailored their own shows with each other. Responding to characters of the site and the friends’ artworks, the artists created artworks upon to what they liked or what was happening. As Huế was part of the vanished Republic of Vietnam, the city contains in itself thick layers of hidden history including the cruel battle in 1968 known as Mậu Thân Massacre or Tết Offensive that resulted in thousands of unjust deaths (Nguyễn Quý Đức 2018; Nhã Ca 1969). Preserving many traditions related to those kinds of incidents, a belief in another world with wandering vengeful spirits is entrenched in the local culture (Liên Hằng 2012; Bảo Ninh 1990; Heonik Kwon 2008).
Such belief appeared in making the installation ‘Nghệ Thuật Vạn Tuế!’ (Art Forever!) by artists Nguyễn Đức Đạt and Laurent Serpe. The object installation performance was inspired from the widely seen worshipping and votive offerings in town. However, the market for the dead offered everything except art supplies. Within two weeks, an artist studio fully equipped was made of colour paper, papier-mâché and cardboard. The artists specified that the votive offerings must be real as it would be truly needed in another world. Thinking in English, the work ‘Art Forever!’ is a tease on what comes next after ‘Art Now’ – a trendy name for books on contemporary art. Likewise in Vietnamese, ‘Nghệ Thuật Vạn Tuế’ is a play on common political slogans in the country. All of these offerings and objects were set up for a week and burnt on the ground of Hue College of Arts on the final day of the art week. Before burning them, the artist and friends brought in fruits, flowers and burnt the incense for worshipping. Đạt was sentimental as he reflected on other deceased artist friends and his own mortality as the objects vanished in the fire. The artist shared that “it was fun to do something invaluable and nonsensical” when speaking about the non-commercial artwork. In response to the object performance, Đào Tùng wanted to create replicas for all censored artworks as votive offerings and to burn them at the opening. This idea thus was rejected because of the “bad luck” it might cause. In the end, a votive television was still realised and carried around NCB’s art spaces by Đào Tùng to commemorate the censored artworks.
Overalls, the organisational structure of NCB is not fixed to any permanent form or space but mobilised in different cities. Like the Hydra’s heads that could be replaced anytime, a head in the function of asking for exhibition permission was replaced in NCB 2021. Instead of a Huế based artist, this time an artist based in Đà Lạt took this responsibility with the addition of another artist collectives – Saola and Cù Rú. With these participations, NCB was planned to boom in the central highland city with over 100 participating artists in May 2021. ‘Dreaming’ is the inspiration for NCB 2021 from the city’s character. Thus, this time the COVID-19 pandemic but not the authority has hindered the art week indefinitely. In a country of almost one hundred million inhabitants, NCB however added a puzzle in the mosaic of independent art and made it happen once in a while among less than two dozen of independent artist collectives, art spaces and art prizes in the country. The art week could still draw attention of thousands of visitors as well as local media in Huế city in 2020.
NCB(2020) view_X_Space at Nest Studio_photo courtesy of Lâm Hiếu Thuận
The One-man-show
A Queer Museum is a form of radical expression which grows every day, full of vivacity, creativity and engagement. It is a performative show, in which unstraight exhibitions are made. Đinh Thị Nhung defines AQM as such in her article ‘Reflections on the Making of Unstraight Exhibitions’ (2020). For her, “the meaning behind the making of unstraight exhibitions is not about the messages communicated by institutions or those who work for them. Instead, it lies in an improved quality of life: the way such exhibitions foster freedom and community, and artistic expression, which is available for all. […] It might represent individual lives in the form of a living museum, or take the form of a gallery or space transformed into a queer one. Above all, the unstraight exhibition has to remain open to possibility.” (ibid.: 52)
With such determination, the queer museum was founded by the only person – Đinh Thị Nhung. Playing a multiple role, Nhung challenges norms of not only ‘a curtor’ but also ‘a museum’. Arising from feminist activism, she came up with the museum idea as a scientist. Born and grew up in a backward Confucian patriarchal society tightly closed within the Socialist Bloc and 30-years-embargo from the USA like Vietnam, several generations like Nhung had no idea about genders and sexuality, which were non-existing issues in the country until the 1990s. The first biological lesson on structure of human beings at the university drew her attention on woman bodies and made her realize that she knew nothings about herself. A passion in understanding her own body structure led Nhung to become a biologist. However, the studies in Vietnam as well as in South Korea and the USA could not fulfil her desire in understanding the complex structure of gender issues. She broke up her PhD research and became an activist in feminism and queer after long experiencing in working with NGOs as well as independent art communities on these issues in Vietnam.
Carrying along and preserving all of the objects, photos and research materials that were left behind NGOs’ development projects on LGBTQI+ communities she worked for, Nhung started her museum as a collector. Her collection includes documentation of languages, texts, objects, testimonies, legal documents, films, music, and additional literature produced by queer communities. Also, it contains materials produced by mainstream society and by NGOs who advocated for LGBTQI+ rights. The collecting began in 2009, when she worked for the ‘LGBTQI+ History Project’ initiated by CCIHP to understand the construction of homosexuality and queerness in Vietnam. This project aimed to (1) better understand the cultural and social construction of homosexuality and gender non-conformity in Vietnam, (2) curate exhibitions on the lives and history of the Vietnamese LGBTQI+ community, and (3) develop an online resource called the LGBTQI+Archive (Nhung 2020: 44-45). As an NGO’s project, after showcasing its outcomes, the project could not keep the exhibiting objects and research materials caused by lacking physical spaces. Feeling uneasy with the project’s contributors and informants, Nhung kept all of their materials at first as an ethic manner.
After years of participating in the making of unstraight exhibitions with the Swedish Unstraight Museum in Myanmar, Cambodia and Sweden, Nhung gains knowledges in museum and exhibition practices. Henceforth, she is aware of the importance of materials, of writing curatorial texts and engaging with audiences in making AQM. With the limitation of financial budget and human resources, the uncertainty in having infrastructures and attracting visitors’ behaviours, in the role of the curator, she turned these disadvantages into advantages. Based on the mobility and flexibility of the museum’s form, the curator never applied for exhibition permission. By doing so, she had an absolute authority on her curating but handed it over to the participants. Decisions in making, conceptualising and thematizing the exhibition were developed together with them. This makes the queer museum diverse and unique in different ways.
In Sài Gòn, Nhung was invited to realise her museum at Sàn Art – an independent art space – in an unprepared condition. Running between several lockdowns caused by the covid-19 pandemic, she came to Sàn Art only with a small rice bag, a rice cooker and a bottle of marinated red bean curd paste. The art space welcomed her warmly with an air mattress, a blanket and a pillow. Consequently, the curator transformed the white cube space into an artist residence full with smells of cooking rice and marinated bean sauce that actually encouraged friends and people to join. Everyday there always someone brought in something, shared some good books, contributed their objects from home or found on the way. A hair salon and a sewing workshop were spontaneously set up. Everyone joined and interacted with each other. The space was fulfilled with lively discussions and jolliness. In such environment, the role of the curator was equalized with other participants. She participated in such performance as an artist.
In Hà Nội, Nhung operated AQM differently depending on the onsite circumstances. Landed in Bà Bầu Air, the museum intermingled with other art spaces and events. Located in French Quarter of Hanoi, Bà Bầu Air is a complex of artist residencies, studios and kitchen in a living house. Beside a small library, there were a sewing studio in the next room and NONFLIX – an Asian mini film festival taken place. All existed in a living atmosphere, which was actually a good way to avoid the police’s attention as Thảo Linh – founder of Bà Bầu Air once said. In such mixture, beside the existing collection of the museum, an add-on collection was built from objects of the neighbour art spaces and participants. On site performance wasn’t happened but chilling and relaxing among cooking and dinning activities. As Nhung observed, visitors did not discover the museum at once when they entered the space. Along the time, they came more and more for chilling and sharing their intimacies. The curator became an intimate friend.
However, the number of visitors/participants depended much on characters of the locations. In general, the queer people did not fit in the Vietnamese society. There had been no space for their expression, especially those with creativeness. As Sài Gòn is a metropolitan which contains a number of queer people, many of them studied abroad and came back but found themselves alien. Open to possibility, A Queer Museum quickly atracted them. Though, there was much less public in Hà Nội compared to Sài Gòn. The reason for this phenomenon probably laid in both networks of the hosting organisers and a local prejudice, which saw activism as propaganda rather than art. Anyway, number of visitors was not the museum’s interest.
Conclusion
Above all, NCB and AQM were tailored to adapt with particular situations in Vietnam. Either the organizing structure in form of the Hydra’s heads or the one-man-show, the two art happenings found their own ways of navigating independent art. Constructed flexibly, NCB allowed participating artists to collaborate with each other to design their own shows without any curatorial frame. This organisational structure might have lacked professionalism but offered an expansive space for liberal minds as artist Đào Tùng noted on NCB 2020. It suggests a more liberal and flexible collaboration amongst artists in curating contemporary art exhibitions. Like a Hydra’s head, an absence of a participant could be easily replaced. In contrast, the absence of Đinh Thị Nhung in realizing AQM plays a decisive role. As seen at Sàn Art, Nhung’s attendance in the museum was only in a week but could turn the whole art space into a cosy and jolly community. Without her participance thereafter, the museum became much more soulless. This implies a different form for the museum that should be a place where people could gather, communicate and the most, feel home. Less but not least, from the both cases, whether a curator is needed in curating contemporary art depends much on the onsite circumstance. In any case, local knowledge plays a crucial role in realizing contemporary art. Without such, art would be only a fusion food that serves some certain tastes in the global art scene.
References
Bảo Ninh 1990. Nỗi buồn chiến tranh (The Sorrow of War). Nhà xuất bản Trẻ 2011.
Đinh Thị Nhung 2020. “Reflections on the Making of the Unstraight Exhibitions.” Museum International, 72: 3-4, 42-53
Heonik Kwon 2008. Ghosts of War in Vietnam. Cambridge University Press 2008.
Hoàng Minh Giám, 1959. Nghị định số 775-VH/ND ngày 17.09.1959 về việc Thành lập Vụ Bảo tồn Bảo tàng.
Hồ Chí Minh,
– 1946a. Sắc lệnh số 18 ngày 31.01.1946 về Đặt thể lệ Lưu chiểu Văn hoá phẩm trong nước Việt Nam do Chủ tịch Lâm thời Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hoà.
– 1946b. Sắc lệnh số 41 ngày 29.03.1946 về Quy định Chế độ Báo chí của Chủ tịch nước Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hoà.
– 1947. Sắc lệnh số 49-SL ngày 15.5.1947 về đặt Giải thưởng Hồ Chí Minh cho Ty Quân giới.
Bảo Ninh 1990. Nỗi buồn chiến tranh (The Sorrow of War). Nhà xuất bản Trẻ 2011.
Nhã Ca 1969. Giải khăn sô cho Huế. https://www.vinadia.org/giai-khan-so-cho-hue-nha-ca/ [Last accessed on March 26, 2021]
Nguyễn Quý Đức 2018. “Revisiting Vietnam 50 Years After the Tet Offensive.” Smithsonian Magazine, Janary/Feburary 2018.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/revisiting-vietnam-50-years-after-tet-offensive-180967501/ [Last accessed on March 26, 2021]
Phạm Hùng,
– 1961. Chỉ thị số 242 TTg ngày 13.06.1961 về việc Đẩy mạnh Công tác Văn hoá Quần chúng trong các Xí nghiệp, Công trường, Nông trường.
– 1961. 1962. Chỉ thị số 45 TTg ngày 9.4.1962 về Công tác và Tổ chức Văn hoá Quần chúng ở nông thôn.
Phạm Văn Bạch 1957. Nghị định số 295-NĐ/DC ngày 08.04.1957 cho phép Hội Mỹ thuật Việt Nam thành lập và hoạt động.
The Party (Communist Party of Vietnam) 2014. Nghị quyết số Nr. 33 NQ/TW Hội nghị lần thứ chín Ban chấp hành Trung ương Đảng khoá XI ngày 09 tháng 06 năm 2014.
Trường Chinh, 1943. “Đề cương văn hoá Việt Nam 1943”. Tạp chí Tiên phong, cơ quan của Hội Văn hóa Cứu quốc VN, số 1 (10.11.1945). In lại trong Sưu tập trọn bộ “Tiên phong” 1945-1946, tạp chí của Hội văn hóa cứu quốc Việt Nam, Lại Nguyên n và Hữu Nhuận sưu tầm, tập 1 (1945). Nxb Hội Nhà văn, Hà Nội, 1996: 32-35.
1 Parts of this essay are based on material that I included in an article and a book chapter:
- Bùi Kim Đĩnh 2021. “Nổ Cái Bùm in Huế and Đà Lạt” on Art and Market, April 08, 2021.
- Bùi Kim Đĩnh 2022. “Movements of Independent Art in Contemporary Vietnam.” Jonathan D. London ed., Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Vietnam. Routledge 2022.
2 Content is based on my interviews and conversations with NCB’s organizers and artists conducted between January and August 2021.
3 Content of AQM is based on my interviews and conversations with artist Đinh Thị Nhung conducted between April and August 2021.
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Author
Bùi Kim Đĩnh obtained two master degrees: one in Vietnamese Archaeology in Hà Nội, and the other in Management and Communication in Museums in Berlin. Experienced in different fields ranging from education, archaeology, antiquity to contemporary art, Kim Đĩnh is active as a researcher, curator and advisor between Vietnam and Germany. Since 2016, she has been working on her doctoral project at Georg-August University of Göttingen. The anthropological research is about Vietnamese independent art since the 1990s that examines the development of contemporary art initiated by non-state art practitioners in the post-socialist Vietnam, and its dynamics of social transformations.
