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Double take: Merging pigs form the work entitled Fusion. — VNA/VNS Photo |
HA NOI — Vietnamese artist Tran Duc Quy opens his exhibition Hop The (Fusion) at L'Espace in Ha Noi with the slogan "Make It Love – Not War". The piece entitled Fusion that looks at first glance like a group of pigs is in fact the hindquarters of two merged pigs with no heads. The image of two fighting pigs came to him, Quy said, where the heads disappear, leaving curly tails and plump rumps.
"Why could not we transfer war into love?" said Quy. "It's no longer fighting but love."
Quy said he was inspired by the works of the Belgian painter Rene Magritte, especially the 1937 painting entitled Not to Be Reproduced, and the image of two pigs fighting was inspired by buffalo fights Quy saw growing up in the northern port city of Hai Phong.
Buffalo fighting made him think of the stupidity of war, he said, which he illustrated by not giving the pigs any heads and thereby letting intelligence become insignificant. The headless, merged pigs thereby become the artist's way of bringing new life.
The exhibition was mounted with the support of the Cultural Development and Exchange Fund (CDEF) of the Danish Embassy.
Danish Ambassador to Viet Nam Peter Lysholt Hansen, chairman of the fund, said, "The message of this exhibition might be an old one but certainly not one that grows tired over time. Quy puts a new and interesting spin on it, and in my opinion he will be one of the active factors that push the contemporary art development of this country ahead."
The exhibition runs through July 23 at L'espace, the French cultural centre, on Trang Tien Street in Ha Noi. — VNS