Exhibition “The Attention Deficit”

Opening: 06 pm – 09 pm, Fri 01 Mar 2024
Exhibition: 12 pm – 10 pm, Tues – Sun, 01 Mar – 14 Apr 2024
Ô Cocktail & Art Bar
292/15 Điện Biên Phủ, Ward 17, district Bình Thạnh, HCMC

Ô Art Bar is pleased to present the solo show “The Attention Deficit” – an unprecedented fusion of contemporary art and the art of mixology, discreetly nestled in the heart of Saigon. Russian artist Ivan Shevnesky has lived in Ho Chi Minh for more than 8 years, bringing forth a series of colorful paintings derived from his inner self, personal experiences, and journeys.

The state of attention represents the constant psychological evolution of humans. In an era where external factors increasingly cause distractions, paying attention becomes more complex and sophisticated. These factors manifest as multi-sensory information that we must continuously process, creating chaos in every aspect of life. Consequently, attention becomes a luxury and a desire in certain situations, evolving into syndromes that people proudly regard as innovations. Drawing parallels between internal and external chaos, Ivan conveys his observations on canvas with contemporary brush strokes and colors, rooted in European modern art.

Piano Recital “Banquet on the Keyboard”

08 pm, 01 & 03 Mar 2024
Middle Cafe, 55 Mã Mây, Hoàn Kiếm, Hà Nội

The piano recital of Lee Bokyung, titled “Banquet on the Keyboard” is a fundraiser for the celebration of the 5th year of Hanoi Grapevine’s Finest, the main annual event that honors contemporary art in Vietnam, organized and selected by Hanoi Grapevine and the audience community, along with other events.

The piano recital “Banquet on the Keyboard” promises to bring an unique musical feast with a combination of Western classical style and Vietnamese folk tunes. Audiences will not only be immersed in the great and immortal sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven, four Ballades for solo piano by Frédéric Chopin, but also experience a new “flavor” of familiar Vietnamese folk tunes of North Vietnam through the sound of the piano in the work “Bunches of Flowers of Vietnam”by composer Đặng Hữu Phúc. Based on the pentatonic (five-note) scale, the most common scale in eastern Asia – with many different forms, rhythms, and emotions, Korean pianist Lee Bokyung has performed the latest version of “Bunches of Flowers of Vietnam” successfully many times in Hanoi, the US and received enthusiastic reception from the audience.

Located in relatively distant creative periods and the differences in East and West music, the piano recital “Banquet on the Keyboard” hopes to bring to the listeners the deep, melodious echo of piano solos and recreate the endless creativity of artists on their journey of experimenting with creative styles, expanding the potential of musical instruments from technique, material, rhythm to their outer limits.

Concert program:
L. Van Beethoven (1770~1827)
Piano Sonata no.21 Op.53 “Waldstein” (1803~4)
F. Chopin (1810~1849)
Four Ballades
Đặng Hữu Phúc (1953~)
Bunches of Flowers of Vietnam (2009)

Theatre “Cinderella”

08 pm, 01, 02 & 08, 09 Mar 2024
Complex 01
No. 29, lane 31, alley 167 Tây Sơn, Quang Trung, Đống Đa, Hà Nội
08 pm, 16 Mar & 07 pm, 16, 17 Mar 2024
ATH – Drama and Arts Space
No. 102 alley 47 Quảng Khánh, Quảng An, Tây Hồ, Hà Nội

This year’s March, we are so happy to invite all audiences of theater and performance arts in Hanoi to come and see our play “Cinderella,” directed by Quentin Delorme!

A young woman cannot understand the last words of her mother, but didn’t ask her to repeat them. After her mother passed, she’s obsessed with these words: “If you always think of me and never forget me for more than 5 minutes, I’ll always be here.” Joël Pommerat has started with this grief and misunderstanding to retell a very old and familiar fairy tale in a modern way.
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Cinderella story resembles our current reality – when everyone is torn between consumption habits and materialism, as values of ethics and humanity are slowly fading away. This play criticizes the individualist lifestyles by portraying several characters who are very selfish and always rely on lies, therefore leading uncomfortable and stuffy lives.
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Throughout the play, actors and actresses will continue to move in between several different spaces. Inspired by street theater, Quentin wants Cinderella to be a play made for everybody, where audiences can also join in the story along with the actors.

Becoming Alice: Through the metal tunnel

Until Mar 3, 09 am – 07 pm, 
The Outpost Art Organisation, Roman Plaza, Tower B1 (Floor 2), To Huu Street, Hanoi

“Becoming Alice: Through the metal tunnel” is the second exhibition introducing artworks in The Outpost Collection, inspired by the magic of imagination casted by English author Lewis Carroll in his famed literary work, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. On a spring day, through The Outpost’s metal tunnel, the viewers are invited to “become Alice” upon entering a strange journey with countless playful characters and bizarre scenarios.

Entrance tickets: available at The Outpost’s reception desk (024.2226.6888)
Ticket price: 60,000 VND (standard); 40,000 VND (student); free (elderly over 65 and children under 6)

“Becoming Alice: Through the metal tunnel” features 13 artists from within and outside of The Outpost Collection: Trần Văn Thảo, Đỗ Hoàng Tường, Hoàng Thanh Vĩnh Phong, Nguyễn Thanh Trúc, Nguyễn Sơn, Hà Mạnh Thắng, Nguyễn Duy Mạnh, Lý Trần Quỳnh Giang, Võ Trân Châu, Lê Hoàng Bích Phượng, Dương Thùy Dương, Đỗ Thanh Lãng and Quỳnh Đông.

Exhibition “Happy Ever After” 

06 Jan – 20 Mar 2024
Floor 2, Mipec Long Bien, No. 2 Long Biên 2, Ngọc Lâm, Long Biên, Hà Nội

Wishing hundred years of happiness for newlyweds on their wedding day expresses Vietnamese people’s sincere desire for a lifetime of joy and fullfillment. What is happiness? What does it take to make us happy? These seemingly simple questions are hard to answer, since each person’s idea of happiness is conditioned by a different life journey.

Through the practice of art using traditional lacquer materials and experiments with different modern materials such as metals and synthetics, the limits of materials expand to change forms and spatial dimensions. These new techniques offer a visually rich experience, creating new emotional expressions and artistic concepts.

In this exhibition, I continue to develop the art project “A Thousand Portraits of Mattresses”, a fusion of sculpture and painting that I’ve been pursuing for the past 10 years and will continue to do so in the future. Displaying mattress artworks alongside traditional paintings of people, landscapes, and objects, I want to invite reflections of life and its essence, of past and present, of time and space, while embracing dreams and realities that humans bear.

The exhibition is not my definition of happiness but merely my observations and reflections of life through the lines, forms, and colors. It is my own searching as an artist of the essence of art, of beauty and grit, of happiness and suffering, and ultimately, the meaning of life.

Exhibition “The Middle Land”

Opening: 05 pm, Tues 30 Jan 2024
Exhibition: 09:30 am – 05 pm, 30 Jan – 20 Apr 2024
Artigin Art Space – Lotte Mall Westlake Office Lobby
683 Lac Long Quan, Tay Ho, Hanoi

A territory residing “in the middle.” Amidst the past, amidst the future. Between the edges of the tangible and the boundless. What we once understood about the contemporary realm now materializes as sudden occurrences, seemingly sensible yet rich in anomalies. A familiar obsession, seemingly empty and lacking in information.

This is where entities and events are no longer confined by nothingness, time, gradually evolving into mutated, distorted beings—creatures of the dream realm. They soar, transform, challenge each other.
They play, dance, conspire, tear each other apart in that condensed timeframe. They are mischievous, carefree in a manner that mocks the ordinary. They are unbound.
They are indifferent, attempting to cling to the old ego eroded and hollowed out by “The Middle Land”
What are they?
They are creatures from the restricted border area, flying like “chaotic locusts” through the spacetime of Lê Đăng Ninh.
They constitute an exhilarating virtual world filled with creatures, events that surpass the common sense of Đinh Quang Hải.
They embody the absurdly carefree, inexplicably innocent, and intriguingly mischievous narratives of Phạm Thái Bình within the highland stories.
They embody the silent, abundant yet wordless nature of Nguyễn Ngọc Liêm. Spacious, vast, gentle yet haunting. Familiar yet full of unfamiliar insecurities.
“The Middle Land” – month lost, year unknown.

The Disoriented Garden… A Breath of Dream

11 am – 06 pm, Tues – Sat, 12 Dec 2023 – 08 Mar 2024
Sàn Art, Units B6.16 and B6.17, 6th Floor, Block B Office, Millennium Masteri, Ward 6, District 4, HCMC (enter via Nguyen Huu Hao street)

Centred on the concept of the garden as a living, regenerative library, “The Disoriented Garden…A Breath of Dream” foregrounds the ecologies that devastate what is intimate and hallow. Through a multimedia installation of video, painting, and sculpture, the artist brings our senses into contact with Vietnam’s Central Highlands: a densely layered soundscape teeming with memory, ancestors, insects, animals, and plants imbued with agency, and varied residues of violent conquest or soft power.

Considering land as witness, the exhibition draws our attention to the overshadowed histories beneath our feet, and, in so doing, intricately constructs an immersive portrait of the geopolitical, environmental, and spiritual subjects contained within.

This exhibition was created as part of the Han Nefkens Foundation–Southeast Asian Video Art Production Grant, aimed at supporting the development of the contemporary video arts field for artists living in Southeast Asia. Premiering at Sàn Art, Tung’s show will also be presented at partner institutions across the globe, including Sa Sa Art Projects (Cambodia), the Jim Thompson Art Center (Thailand), Museion (Italy), Busan Museum of Art (South Korea) and the Prameya Art Foundation (India).

Born in 1986, Trương Công Tùng grew up in Dak Lak among various ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. He graduated from the Ho Chi Minh Fine Arts University in 2010, majoring in lacquer painting. With research interests in science, cosmology, philosophy and the environment, Truong Cong Tung works with a range of media, including video, installation, painting and found objects, which reflect personal contemplations on the cultural and geopolitical shifts of modernization, as embodied in the morphing ecology, belief or mythology of a land. He is also a member of Art Labor (founded in 2012), a collective working between visual art and social/life sciences to produce alternative non-formal knowledge via artistic and cultural activities in various public contexts and locales.

Outdoor display of antique artifacts 

Until the end of 2024, Pleiku City, Gia Lai Province

An outdoor exhibition entitled “Tay Nguyen – Gia Lai Paradise” displaying antique artifacts of local ethnic people.

Highlights of the exhibition are a white elephant bone chair dating back 700 years and a collection of elephant hunting tools dating back more than 100 years of the M'Nong ethnic group.

On display are thousands of antique artifacts of collector Dang Minh Tam, including musical instruments, hunting and weaving tools, ceremonial objects, jewelry items and other items in the life of ethnic groups in the five Central Highlands provinces.

Exhibition “A Tide of Emotions”