What's ON - Results - The Art Newspaper

Dates: 13 Sep 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Far East
Address: 1001 Bissonnet Houston 77005
Tel: +1 713 639 7300 Website

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, hosts a landmark exhibition of ancient Vietnamese art this month. This ambitious, large-scale show—the first of its kind to be staged in the US—is the culmination of 20 years of research, planning and negotiations with Vietnamese institutions and government officials. The wide variety of works on display, many of which have never before been exhibited outside Vietnam, are drawn from the country’s leading museums in Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Ha Noi, Hue and Dong Nai. “We aim to introduce Vietnamese art and culture to an American audience,” says San Francisco-based independent curator Dr Nancy Tingley. She adds: “Most people in the US are unfamiliar with Vietnamese history prior to the 20th century and associate the country primarily with the Vietnam War.” The Houston museum’s in-house curator for the exhibition, Christine Starkman, adds: “People are familiar with Chinese, Indian and, to a certain degree, Korean art, but Vietnamese art is still a bit of mystery and we hope to change this.” The exhibition will show that Vietnam was a central hub for exchange between Asia and the West from as early as the first millennium BC. The 110 sculptures, bronzes, terracottas and jewellery on display originated from countries including India and China and places as far west as Rome. “As the exhibition develops, visitors will see an increase in material goods and exchange of ideas between countries,” says Tingley. The display is divided chronologically into sections. The first is entitled “Early Cultures” and covers the country’s first “Golden Age” from 1000 BC to the second century AD when the Sa Huynh and Dong Son civilisations dominated the landscape in the centre/south and north respectively. Most of what remains from this period are grave goods such as large funerary jars, ornamental bronze drums, axes and beads. The next section concentrates on the Fu Nan people who inhabited the Mekong River Delta in the southwestern part of the country from the first to eighth centuries AD. The seafaring Champa people are explored in the third section. From the fifth to the 15th century this kingdom flourished, controlling the highly profitable spice trade in Southeast Asia. Cham objects on display include sculpture and metalwork from Indonesia, Butuan and India. The final section covers the 12th to the 15th centuries and concentrates on the ceramic trade in the port of Hoi An. Several of the works on display have been unearthed within the past two decades. “Vietnam is incredibly rich in cultural remains. There are at least 75 archaeological excavations every year, which is an extraordinary amount of digs for a country of its size,” notes Tingley. Some of the most interesting objects come from a shipwreck excavated in the 1990s off the coast of Cu Lao Cham Island in the central province of Quang Nam. Archaeologists discovered a cache of 150,000 to 200,000 ceramic pieces. This find illustrates not only the varied types of ceramics produced in Vietnam, but also the obvious demand for these wares. The exhibition will travel to the Asia Society in New York (2 February-2 May 2010). Emily Sharpe

Female, probably fifth century