Since the start of the new millennium, installation, video and performance art has become increasingly popular in Việt Nam, thanks largely to the adventurous programming of venues such as Salon Natasha, Đức’s House on Stilts, Việt Art Centre, Ryllega Experimental Art Gallery,Studio Đào Anh Khánh, the Goethe-Institut and l’Espace – French Cultural Centre in Hà Nội and Galerie Quỳnhand Mai’s Gallery in Hồ Chí Minh City.
The art of site-specific installation was pioneered in the 1990s by such figures as Đặng Thị Khuê, Vũ Dân Tân, Nguyễn Bảo Toàn (b 1950), Trần Lương, Trương Tân and Trần Trọng Vũ, all of whom produced installations for a range of domestic and international exhibitions.
Thereafter a group of younger artists began experimenting with the genre, including Nguyễn Minh Thành (b 1971), Nguyễn Văn Cương (b 1970), Trần Hậu Yên Thế (b 1970), Phạm Hà Hải (b 1974), Nguyễn Xuân Long (b 1974), Trần Anh Quân (b 1973), Hoàng Dương Cầm (b 1974), Đào Anh Khánh (b 1959) and Lê Hồng Thái in Hà Nội; Lê Thừa Tiến (b 1964) in Huế; and Nguyễn Minh Phương (b 1964), Đỗ Xuân Tịnh (b 1970), Nguyễn Như Huy (b 1971) and Nguyễn Thị Châu Giang (b 1975) in Hồ Chí Minh City.
In recent years video art has been presented by a number of artists, most notably Trần Lương, Nguyễn Quang Huy and Nguyễn Minh Phước (b 1973).
Trương Tân was the first artist to present performance art to Vietnamese audiences. Other contemporary artists who have experimented with the genre in recent years include Nguyễn Văn Cường, Phạm Hà Hải and Đào Anh Khánh from Hà Nội and Đỗ Xuân Tịnh and Ly Hoàng Ly (b 1975) from Hồ Chí Minh City.While Hà Nội remains the country’s artistic hub, the southern capital of Hồ Chí Minh City has recently begun to re-emerge as a leading centre of contemporary art. An important catalyst in this process has been the return of acclaimed Việt Kiều (overseas Vietnamese) artists such as Jun-Nguyễn Hatsushiba (b 1968), Đinh Q Lê (b 1968), Rich Streitmatter-Trần (b 1972), Tiffany Chung (b 1973) and Khải Đoàn (b 1971), whose activities have helped to bring a new vibrancy to the southern creative scene. The opening in 2004 of the artist-run initiative known as a little blah blah (albb) by Sue Hajdu and Motoko Uda in Hồ Chí Minh City has also contributed significantly to the development of contemporary art in the southern capital. Its
An important emerging trend in Vietnamese contemporary art is the increasing number of cross-disciplinary artistic collaborations.
Noteworthy recent examples include 2005’s Hạt gạo (Grains of Rice) collaboration between artist Lê Thiết Cương, poet Trần Đăng Khoa, contemporary musician Vũ Nhật Tân and photographers Dương Minh Long and Trần Quốc Khanh at Thăng Long (Dragon) Art Gallery; and Le soir est tout soupirs, a collaboration between writer and critic Dương Tường (poetic installation), artists Nguyễn Minh Thành (painting, installation), Nguyễn Quang Huy (video art) and Trương Tân (costumes) and musician Vũ Dân Tân atl’Espace – French Cultural Centre, Hà Nội.
Collaborative projects involving foreign and local performance artists have also increased significantly in number in recent years.Highlights of 2005 included A Walk Between Two Worlds, a mixed media event created in Hà Nội as part of an ongoing collaboration between New York-based choreographer and video director Stephan Koplowitz and performance artist Đào Anh Khánh; and a new performance art work funded by the Dance Theatre Workshop Mekong Project Suitcase Fund and performed by Việt Nam-based art group Project One in both New York and Hồ Chí Minh City in collaboration with Rich Streitmatter-Trần.
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