Meetingpoint opening

Openings are very formal in Vietnam, there is a stage with a microphone, a beautiful lady, dressed in Ao Day as MC and all people sitting neatly on a chair with a beautiful white cover. Anyone who even has something to do with the exhibition may then speak. You must be willing to understand by listening very active, because however much the technician does his best, the technical equipment rarely works. In addition to this, many of the speakers have little or no experience in public speaking. I think this is not really important, you know who is thanking who etcetera. It is especially exciting to look at each other. After all it is a party with snacks after the speeches.

Flor Bex, the former director of Antwerp ICC (International Cultural Centre) and founder of the Muhka (Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp), decided very unusual, on a certain moment to abolish the opening ceremonies at the ICC. He preferred to use its money for exhibitions. I was in the position to work with him for a while, which has greatly influenced me, including influencing me on on how to do openings. For the director of the HCMC Fine Art Museum my approach therefore came as something of a complete surprise. Especially when I told her that only she and the Consul General might have a speech, otherwise I would be the only one saying something. She asked me: "Don't the artists say something?". No, they wouldn't.

It was not my intention to follow the standard protocol. With more than 30 participating artists it would become a very long event. I'd rather try to open the exhibition in a literally and figuratively way. Very often people say that they do have an interest in art, but they understand so little about it. This could be easily solved by the approach of Johannes Itten, one of the best art lecturers in history. Itten who taught at Bauhaus in 1920, a few years before the first Academy was founded in Vietnam (Ha Noi 1925), asked his students during a lesson to draw lemons. Those were realistic drawings in which the lemons were represented exactly as they look. "And now, said Itten, you have to represent them as they are! Not as they look." Students understood nothing from what Itten said, so he took a few lemons, cut them in half and put the students half a lemon in their mouth. Then pointing at their distorted faces Itten said: "That is what I want to see on the canvas! When people see your work, they have to look that sour! ". How to represent an abstract a form is easy to understand, everybody knows and uses smileys. And that was the opening,

More or less, because such a story you should obviously bring very graphically and in this case in three languages. Luckily I had the help of Tranh Phuong Trinh, my former internee who translated my Dutch text in word and gesture into English and Vietnamese. Not that she speaks Dutch, but she always understands immediately what I want to say. She was especially flown from Kuala Lumpur where she works in the field of international law, but I think she would do much better doing this kind of work ... .

We also had Simon Borst who shows that an artists works with what is available. You can paint even with chocolate...it smells good and tastes great.

And there was a long after-party......

As the story goes the exhibition was arranged during the opening: a few rooms with figurative art, a couple with abstract art and a large hall with very expressive narrative work. At the bottom of each work only a number was tagged and this was so for never done in Vietnam. Normally you do find all sorts of information underneath the works. This shows also constantly tormented faces of visitors who seek to understand the meaning of the work. The relationship between the title and the artwork is quite often complicated and not always a step towards understanding the work. Eventually understanding it is something for the future, first there should be interest for it and this must be aroused by the artwork itself. Finally, it is autonomous art and it is not illustrating of some vision.

This undecorated way of presenting art was highly appreciated by the public, "Oh, we just have to look? And it is not necessary to understand?"
I had a list in each hall put up of course with the name of the artists and its corresponding number.
It was very special for the media too. There was even a news team working for the most important national news channel with the question, "But what if people think something other than the artist intended?"