Participated artists:
Nguyễn Quang Huy
Nguyễn Minh Phước
Hoàng Dương Cầm
Nguyễn Anh Tuấn
Phạm Ngọc Dương
Richard Streitmatter-Trần
Lê Huy Hoàng

ifa gallery is pleased to present the works of the young generation of Vietnamese artists. These seven creators from Hanoi and Saigon open the first chapter of a series of Vietnamese exhibitions for 2009 with “A Snapshot of Vietnamese Contemporary Art”.

Vietnamese contemporary art is little known, or altogether unknown in the world of art, despite its strength and credibility. With China having taken centre stage worldwide in recent years, unprecedented attention has been drawn to its artists and their gigantic, audacious and sometimes provocative works. Yet other countries also continue their exploration of and discovery within diverse artistic expression, perhaps in a more discrete matter but with just as much talent. Vietnam is one of these countries and it has taken its place in South East Asia these last fifteen years as
an incubator of creativity and reflection on society.

Doi Moi, the political and economic renewal of 1986 made its mark on the cultural scene. Since, artists have shunned academicism and socialist realist propaganda, to experiment with different mediums and to interrogate their country and personalities. “A Snapshot of Vietnamese Contemporary Art” is a cross-section of this creation. Environmental problems, corruption, family, women, communism, childhood, or the place of the individual are the various issues that the artists deal with and express through installation, painting, video, sculpture and photography. Each of them describe and express in their own way the Vietnam of yesterday and today, their personal identity and that of its nation, in a country undergoing constant upheaval.

These artists deliver works full of power and poetry, a distinctive feature of Vietnamese contemporary art.