Vincom Center for Contemporary Art

In September 2025, the exhibition Hồi Cố Vọng Lai | Retrospective of Vision opens, marking an important milestone in the history of Vietnamese art: the centennial of the Indochina College of Fine Arts (L'école des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine) which trained and shaped generations of modern Vietnamese artists. The exhibition is not only an occasion to revisit nearly five decades of artistic practice by three artists born in 1949 ­­­- Lý Trực Sơn, Đào Minh Tri, and Ca Lê Thắng - but also a visual and theoretical experiment that questions Vietnamese artistic identity in dialogue with the global.

This centenary recalls the processes of integration and self-assertion in Vietnamese art. Established in 1925 under French colonial rule, the Indochina College of Fine Arts created an academic space where Western art met local traditions. As art historian Nora Taylor (2004) has studied, the school - affectionately known as the Yết Kiêu University of Fine Art - was both a site for imparting European techniques and a center nurturing local creative thinking, opening complex relationships between the indigenous and the global. From this context, many Vietnamese artists asked themselves: how could painting transcend mere imitation to become an independent form - reflecting local culture while joining international modernist currents?

Hồi Cố Vọng Lai | Retrospective of Vision is not merely an assembly of works, but rather a “map of time” and “map of space” in contemporary Vietnamese art. It reveals how three artists, each from different regions, simultaneously absorbed external influences and drew on memory, materials, and local symbols. From Huế in the Central region, to Hà Nội in the North, and Bến Tre in the South, each regional experience has been received, reshaped, and transformed in artistic practice, producing creative trajectories that are distinct yet interconnected.

As Homi K. Bhabha (1994) argues in his notion of the “third space,” cultural identity is not a fixed entity but continuously produced through dialogue, encounter, and cultural translation. This exhibition vividly embodies that concept: three artists, three regional experiences, and three creative journeys across time - from tradition to modernity, from the local to the global - have created a “third space” where memory, symbolism, and abstraction converge, opening multi-layered readings of art.

The exhibition space also raises questions of legacy and continuity: modern and contemporary Vietnamese art is not simply a copy of international trends, but the result of processes of “translation, hybridity, and adaptation.” In the context of globalization, as James Clifford (1997) emphasizes, culture and art operate within “ongoing networks,” where local memory, indigenous materials, and global experience are not oppositional but mutually reinforcing. From this perspective, Hồi Cố Vọng Lai | Retrospective of Vision becomes a space of reflection, where viewers may observe Vietnamese art as simultaneously integrated, distinct, and responsive to global transformations.

This historical and theoretical framework provides the foundation for understanding the three artists: Ca Lê Thắng with the river of the Mekong Delta; Đào Minh Tri with his fish motifs and North–South–Europe trajectory; and Lý Trực Sơn with earth and metaphysical abstraction. Each artist is emblematic of the intersections between locality, history, and globality, while reflecting the endeavor to construct an independent “Vietnamese artistic language” that is at once local and modern.

Born and raised in Bến Tre, Ca Lê Thắng takes the Mekong Delta as his creative source. The river, the flood season, and the alluvial landscape are not only subjects but living bodies, where art registers the relationship between humans, nature, and time. His Flood Season 2025 series extends two earlier cycles, expanding the space of memory and the present, simultaneously recording the rhythms of nature and evoking the poetics of the riverine world.

Research on local art in globalization shows, as Appadurai (1996) notes, that “cultural flows” are both local and transnational, generating new artistic possibilities. In Thắng’s paintings, the river is not only a symbol but a moving sign, an eco–social–spiritual network where local history enters modern artistic knowledge. The fluidity of color and composition in Flood Season reflects the translocality of Vietnamese art - local experience absorbing global language while retaining indigenous resonance (Clifford, 1997).

The Flood Season series is thus not only a vivid record of the Mekong Delta landscape but also an articulation of cultural time and knowledge through nature’s imagery. Flexible color fields, flowing lines, and the energetic rhythms of water and silt immerse viewers in a space that is both real and poetic, where memory, history, and personal experience intertwine.

As W. J. T. Mitchell (1994) argues, landscape is not merely a “map” or natural image but a form of power, a medium that expresses the relations between humans and the world, between politics, culture, and environment. In the Mekong Delta context, the river and flood season become a nexus of livelihood, communal memory, and natural environment - both a vehicle of regional identity and an expression of human-nature relations.

In Flood Season 2025, Thắng moves from realist documentation to the poeticization of landscape, creating an “expressive landscape” where terrain becomes an object of emotion, memory, and thought. Overflowing waters, river sunsets, and intermingling hues of green, brown, and yellow generate a continuous rhythm, reminding viewers of nature’s cycles while opening cultural and historical dimensions of the land. Mitchell emphasizes that landscape is a discourse of power, where art shapes perception and human–environment relations. In Thắng’s paintings, the river becomes a form of soft power, reviving collective memory and personal experience, while enabling dialogue with global art that retains its local imprint.

Born in Hà Nội, migrating to Sài Gòn in 1976, and studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1991, Đào Minh Tri is a quintessential figure of modern displacement, where artistic identity is continuously formed and reshaped through spatial-cultural movement (Bhabha, 1994). The fish motif lies at the heart of his work: lyrical, surreal, and reflective of human-nature-cosmos relations. Fish are not merely decorative or symbolic, but invoke biological and evolutionary logics, recalling Neil Shubin’s Your Inner Fish (2008), which regards the human body as the result of continuous evolution from fish to worms to bacteria. In Tri’s paintings, the fish symbol reflects history while opening a cosmology in which time and life are perceived as continuous, embodying the integration of folk symbolism into modern language without losing its local resonance.

In 2001, Tri developed a body of works exploring the complex relationship between humans and nature. Three works Human, Human-Fish, and Scream serve as key markers, each reflecting different shades of the fish-human motif. They demonstrate not only the artist’s creative direction in that year but also his evolving engagement with symbolism, materiality, and abstraction.

In Human, the figure is represented through a grid structure, dividing space into cells that are both physical and mental. This technique creates multi-perspectival vision, where fish and humans coexist in parallel yet independent worlds, each grid cell opening its own inner domain. The grid here is not merely compositional but a tool for Tri to explore fragmentation of the self and human–nature relations, akin to modernist notions of multi-perspectivity (Foster, 1996). Each cell invites distinct visual and contemplative experiences, blending material, spiritual, and temporal dimensions.

By contrast, Human-Fish depicts a space of fusion, where fish and humans merge in a continuous, energetic flow. Vivid colors and expansive composition generate a celebratory, fertile image, honoring the interaction between humans and nature. The fish motif becomes part of a unified cosmos, resonant with Eastern philosophies of interbeing, while also opening surrealist dimensions. Human-Fish exemplifies expressive liberation, where emotion and vision converge into a vibrant aesthetic experience.

In Scream, Tri fractures the fish-human motif into stark conflicts of form. The work expresses a tense state, where human and fish, nature and survival, clash yet coexist. The technique aligns with modernist expressionism, where form becomes a vehicle of psychological and emotional intensity. Unlike Human-Fish, Scream emphasizes inner conflict and the complexities of human-nature relations, creating a dramatic and thought-provoking aesthetic encounter.

Tri’s techniques are diverse - oil, gouache, lacquer - layered pigments and brushstrokes conveying expression while blending geometric conventions and folk decoration. As Clement Greenberg (1960) noted, “pure painting” reveals form and color apart from political or symbolic functions; yet in Tri’s work, this purity coexists with folk symbolism, balancing personal expression with cultural tradition.

From Huế in Central Vietnam, Lý Trực Sơn developed an abstract universe rooted in earth - both mundane and sacred. Before turning to earth, stone, sand, and plants, he had a deep engagement with traditional Vietnamese lacquer, especially natural lacquer (sơn ta). For him, lacquer was not merely a technique but a philosophical material, where the density of time, inner luminosity, and processes of polishing, inlay, and layering became tools for opening a distinctive abstract language.

Sơn diverged from conventional decorative approaches in lacquer, seeking instead profound abstract expression. His abstract lacquer works represent an effort to redefine traditional material within contemporary aesthetics—where abstraction is not only form but also spiritual structure, symbolic and meditative. Layers of laquer, scratches, cracks, and metallic gleams in his paintings transcend technique to become visual signs of emotion, subconscious, and temporal depth. This is a continuation of the Vietnamese spirit, yet transformed through a personal and modern lens, resonating globally.

His years of study and residence in France and Germany, coupled with persistent creative practice, shaped Lý Trực Sơn into an artist both local and global. Works such as Earth and other abstract series open meditative spaces, inviting viewers into a convergence of body–material–time, highlighting the unconscious gravitation that Hans Arp once described: art as a naturally ripened fruit, simultaneously present and metaphorical, never forced to mimic the material world.

In the Blue series, Sơn explores a refined chromatic range, where blue becomes the central instrument to open a cosmic and mysterious abstract world. Blue is not merely a color, but an emotional field where light, darkness, and tonal shifts guide the viewer into a contemplative and haunting visual experience. His use of blue recalls Blue Velvet by David Lynch, where the color evokes both mystery and the hidden realms of consciousness and inner conflict. Similarly, in Sơn’s paintings, blue is not just pigment but a symbol of temporal and spatial depth, where abstract forms become traces of cosmic and unconscious energy. His blue operates as a “threshold” into multiple dimensions - at once real, abstract, and sacred. Works in the Blue series present abstract rhythms where matter - earth, sand, grass - melds with color to construct a lyrical cosmos. This continues Sơn’s metaphysical abstraction, refined further: blue as emotive substance, awakening the subconscious while inviting contemplation of time, space, and existence.

Ultimately, Hồi Cố Vọng Lai | Retrospective of Vision records not only the creative journeys of Lý Trực Sơn, Đào Minh Tri, and Ca Lê Thắng, but also opens a lens to revisit and reconfigure Vietnamese artistic identity in the global era. From regional memory and folk symbols to materiality and abstraction, each work testifies to integration, hybridity, and self-assertion. Within this “third space,” Vietnamese art not only reflects the past but also shapes the future, where local identity and modern thought meet, clash, and flourish together.

Curator

Đỗ Tường Linh