Featuring artwork from Veroninka Radulovic’s archive. The exhibited pieces were created during the 1990s – a period of Vietnamese Contemporary Art.
Artists: Nguyễn Minh Thành, Nguyễn Quang Huy, Trương Tân
“I could not imagine then that some of these photos would become the only documentation, for example, of the first stirrings of a performance art scene in Vietnam. Now, 25 years later in Germany - as an observer or a temporary visitor at best, who gleans news about Vietnam’s well-connected international art scene from daily social network chats with friends there - all these works and photos appear to me in quite a different light. They are no longer just gifts, pictures forgotten or discarded as worthless, but rather artworks that have written contemporary history. They had once been a provocative force in their time and place. Here today, this force may seem spent. But to me, now more than ever, it seems as if the artists presented in this book, with their radical stances, were far ahead of their time. Perhaps that is precisely why they fell by the wayside. They became legends before their work could become a permanent and officially recognized part of Vietnam’s art.”
Edited excerpt from Veronika Radulovic, ‘Go, Make Friends!’, Don't Call It Art! Contemporary Art in Vietnam 1993-1999, pp.7-11.
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