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However, a place of such strong characteristics comes with its drawbacks, too. Occasionally, Nha San can appear so overpowering that the artworks exhibited here tend to become less significant and even lost. A gallery space is supposed to be neutral; its role is to be a blank canvas. Nha San is in the opposite position – there is always something to be discovered and to be appreciated here. In other words, our attention is often (mis)led back to Nha San – its structures, scenery; its people, the objects and furniture it contains – and not on the artworks. Therefore for an exhibition to be successful, Nha San needs to be selective of the kind of works that could or should be shown in the space. The artist themselves must also realize this fact and work closely with (and at) Nha San. Hoang Minh Duc has managed to do just that. The fact that his first solo exhibition, entitled ‘Longan’, is held at Nha San speaks volume about this artist.
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The exhibition comprises a number of site-specific sculptures and installations. As the title suggests, each of these sculptures/installations are made from longan seeds – hundreds of them, joined together, spread around the space. This ordinary and non-materialistic medium has a significant and sentimental value to the artist. The reason, he states, comes from his childhood upbringing filled with memories of the longan: having to work and make his own fun out of whatever he could find on the fields, and having to collect matured longans on boiling summer days. But that didn’t stop his interest in the fruit. In fact, it became stronger as time went by. Duc’s family has been growing longan for generations; and so he has known it since the day he was born. He can tell whether a longan is fully matured, what type of longan it is and where it’s from just by looking and feeling it with his fingers. He can tell how much fruit each tree can produce and whether they will make any profit just by roughly calculating the number of bunches of longans. And you can tell that this man has a deep love and passion for the fruit. It has long become the core of anything that he does; feeding and strengthening his artistic practice.
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There’s a need to understand that it could be quite risky when artists use a kind of material too personal and figurative, and only reflects certain aspects of their own culture, background or experiences. A lot of the time the audience won’t be able to appreciate this, either because they only have a limited knowledge on the material or simply because they don’t share the same culture and background with the artist. However, Duc’s work doesn’t fall into this category. Although he did use a medium and experiences so private and close to his heart, the artist was able to tell not only his story, but also others’ – stories of those who left their hometowns and countries, aiming to build a better life elsewhere; stories about origins and roots; stories that remind us to always remember who we really are and where we come from. In other words, the artist is asking us to recall and share our own stories – we look at the artworks to look into ourselves. Consequently, the art becomes merely a trigger and a vehicle to create something much more valuable: a meeting place for both the eyes and the minds of the artist’s, the audience’s, of everyone’s.
‘As we walk around, we realize how well Duc has intervened and interacted with the architectural structures of this place. He has used the ‘spare’ and ‘forgotten’ spaces as the foundation for his works: behind a wall, a corner, a house column, holes and gaps on the ceiling and on the wall. This aspect of Duc’s work reminds me of Victor Hugo’s famously coined term ‘terrains vagues’ – those empty, unoccupied and abandoned border-areas between nature and civilization, between one realm and another. They are places of uncertainty and unease, places to be avoided. On the other hand, these are places full of creative potential and interest, being free from many of the restrictions elsewhere. There is something quite romantic when reading Duc’s work in this manner. It seems the artist is trying to bridge spaces of the real and some other world that lies just behind it. He is asking us to forget all the sadness and obscurities of life, to stop for awhile and come together as one, to share, perform and interact with one another – as do the organs and muscles and skeleton of a solitary body. And finally he is asking us to all overstep a limit, to transgress a border, to enter a land full of freedom, expectancies, promises, and possibilities – a eutopia [4].
[1] A general term used to define all kinds of wooden houses built on stilts, with columns and two floors.
[2] http://nhasanduc.multiply.com/
[3] http://www.nyartsmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2180&Itemid=698
[4] A positive utopia, different in that it means ‘perfect’ but not ‘fictional’.
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I can never forget the hospitality extended towards me by the community of artists who hang out at Nha San Duc! Although language was a barrier, it didn’t take long for us to ensure that this did not hinder us from talking to each other. What I would love to is is a proper documentation of all the ephemeral performance-based practices that were staged in Nha San Duc. I don’t think the landscape of contemporary art in Hanoi could be painted without acknowledging how important this institution is in the staging of such works.
I don’t think I agree that a gallery space needs to be a neutral space. IMHO, this is a modernist hangover that works of art need maintain its own autonomy hence requiring a white cube space that could bracket it for our engagement. In contemporary practices that have always sought to engage with the local context, acknowledgment of spaces as loaded with historical and cultural values creates a new set of challenges for the artist to respond to in their works. You’re right that Nha San Duc as a traditional house can appear over-powering. Equally I’m interested in seeing artists create works that are aware of the structural limits as well as cultural values attached to an architecture such as this. Perhaps, this is why Minh Duc’s work succeeds on so many levels.